(Jack Demaine) Sociology of Education Today PDF

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Sociology of Education Today

Also by Jack Demaine
BEYOND COMMUNITARIANISM: Citizenship, Politics and Education

(with Harold Entwistle)
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
EDUCATION POLICY AND CONTEMPORARY POLITICS
Sociology of
Education Today
Edited by
Jack Demaine
Department of Social Sciences
Loughborough University
England
Selection and editorial matter © Jack Demaine 2001

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Sociology of education today / edited by Jack Demaine.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–333–77828–6 — ISBN 0–333–77829–4 (pbk.)
1. Educational sociology. I. Demaine, Jack.
LC191.2 .S634 2000
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Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Notes on the Contributors ix
Introduction: Research in Sociology of Education Today

Jack Demaine 1
1 Shaping the Sociology of Education over Half-a-Century
Roger Dale 5
Purpose: the dominant project 7
Location: the conditions of academic work 10
Context: opportunities and constrains 13
The selection principle and the focus and approaches
of the sociology of education in Britain, 1950-95 14
Conclusion 26
Acknowledgement 29
2 Feminist Sociology of Education: Dynamics, Debates

and Directions
Jo-Anne Dillabough and Madeleine Arnot 30
A conceptual framework 33
Rationalistic theorizing: ìntrinsic' and extrinsic
approaches 34
Relational epistemologies and the question of
`gender' in education 39
Critical modernization theory 44
Future considerations 46
Acknowledgement 48
3 Rethinking Social Justice: A Conceptual Analysis

Sharon Gewirtz 49
Rethinking the boundaires of social justice 49
Four approaches to justice 52
Conclusion: a social justice agenda for education
policy sociology 63
Acknowledgements 64
v
vi Contents
4 The New IQism: Intelligence, Àbility' and the Rationing

of Education
David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell 65
Reform and equity 66
The research 71
The A±to±C economy 73
Constructing àbility' 75
Ability, intelligence and IQuism 79
`Race', class and ability 82
Ability, selection and the rationing of education 86
Education as triage 88
Conclusions 93
Notes 97
5 New Teachers and the Question of Ethnicity
Bruce Carrington, Alastair Bonnett, Anoop Nayak, Geoff Short,
Christine Skelton, Fay Smith, Richard Tomlin and Jack Demaine 100
The scope of the research 101
The evidence of the gatekeepers 103
Perceived constraints on recruitment 106
Staying on the course or dropping out 110
Supporting ethnic minority students 111
Conclusion 115
Acknowledgements 118
6 Manufacturing The Global Locality, Customizing
the School and Designing Young Workers
Jane Kenway, Peter Kelly and Sue Willis 119
Researching VET in globalizing circumstances 120
Global economies of signs and spaces 121
Manufacturing place in global economies 122
Manufacturing enterprising young people 128
Conclusion 140
Note 141
7 Development, Democracy and Deviance in
Contemporary Sociology of Education
Lynn Davies 142
Development, democracy and deviance in education 145
Theorizing a new sociology of education 148
Complexity and Change 151
Communication, knowledge, memory and modelling 152
Contents vii
Human rights and transformative deviance 156

`Voices' in development 159
Trying to catch the rain 160
8 The Sociology of Comparative Education
Lawrence Saha 163
Theories in comparative education 165
The three dimensions of comparative education
and studies of development 170
Summary 173
Conclusion 178
9 New Class Relations in Education: the Strategies of the

`Fearful' Middle Classes
Stephen Ball and Carol Vincent 180
The end of class? 182
Class in context 183
Class strategies 185
Conclusions 193
10 Missing: A Sociology of Educating the Middle Class
Sally Power 196
Representations of the middle class 198
Conclusion 205
Notes 205
11 Vultures and Third Ways: Recovering Mannheim's
Legacy for Today
Geoff Whitty 206
Background 206
The importance of the bigger picture 208
Understanding education reform 210
Researching the impact of education reform 214
Third ways? 220
Acknowledgement 222
Bibliography 223
Index 247
Acknowledgements
As editor, I would like to thank the following people for their contribu-
tions, encouragement, support and hard work: Madeleine Arnot, Linda
Auld, Stephen Ball, Alastair Bonnett, Bruce Carrington, Lorraine Culley,
Roger Dale, Lynn Davies, Jo-Anne Dillabough, Tim Farmiloe, Sharon
Gewirtz, Heather Gibson, Dave Gillborn, Peter Kelly, Jane Kenway,
Anoop Nayak, Sally Power, Larry Saha, Geoff Short, Fay Smith, Richard
Tomlin, Christine Skelton, Carol Vincent, Geoff Whitty, Sue Willis, Pat
Wiltshire and Deborah Youdell.
viii
Notes on the Contributors
Madeleine Arnot is Fellow of Jesus College and Reader in Sociology of

Education at the University of Cambridge. Her publications include
Feminism and Social Justice in Education (with Kathleen Weiler) (1993),
Educational Reforms and Gender Equality in Schools (with Miriam David
and Gaby Weiner) (l996), Recent Research on Gender and Educational
Performance (with John Gray, Mary James and Jean Rudduck) (1998)
and Closing the Gender Gap: post-war education and social change (with
Miriam David and Gaby Weiner) (1999). She is a member of the editorial
board of International Studies in Sociology of Education and an executive
member of the editorial board of the British Journal of Sociology of Educa-
tion. She is an international consultant for Gender and Education.
Stephen Ball is Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at
the Institute of Education, University of London. His publications
include Politics and Policy-making in Education (1990), Education Reform
(1994) and Markets, Choice and Equity in Education (with Sharon Gewirtz
and Richard Bowe) (1995). He is managing editor of the Journal of
Education Policy and a board member of a number of other journals
including the British Journal of Sociology of Education, Discourse, and the
International Journal of Inclusive Education.
Alastair Bonnett is Reader in Human Geography at the University of

Newcastle upon Tyne. His publications include Radicalism, Anti-racism
and Representation (1993), Anti-racism (1999) and White Identities: Histor-
ical and International Perspectives (1999).
Bruce Carrington is Professor of Education at the University of New-

castle. His publications include Children and Controversial Issues (with
Barry Troyna) (1988), `Race' and the Primary School: Theory into Practice
(with Geoffrey Short) (1989) and Education, Racism and Reform (with
Barry Troyna) (1990).
Roger Dale is Professor of Education and Associate Dean of Arts at the
University of Auckland. His publications include The State and Education
Policy (1989) and The TVEI Story: Policy, Practice and Preparation for Work
(1990). He is a member of several editorial boards including the British
Journal of Sociology of Education, International Studies in Sociology of Educa-
tion, Discourse and Educational Research.
ix
x Notes on the Contributors
Lynn Davies is Professor of International Education and Director of

the Centre for International Education and Research at the University
of Birmingham. Her publications include Pupil Power: Deviance and
Gender in School (1984), Equity and Efficiency: School Management in an
International Context (1990), Beyond Authoritarian School Management:
the Challenge for Transparency (1994) and School Management and Effect-
iveness in Developing Countries (with Clive Harber) (1998). She is
an executive editor of British Journal of Sociology of Education and a
member of the editorial board of International Studies in Sociology of
Education.
Jack Demaine is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at

Loughborough University. His publications include Contemporary The-
ories in the Sociology of Education (1981), Beyond Communitarianism: Citi-
zenship, Politics and Education (with Harold Entwistle) (1996) and
Education Policy and Contemporary Politics (1999). He is an executive
editor of International Studies in Sociology of Education.
Jo-Anne Dillabough is an Assistant Professor at the Ontario Institute

for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto and was for-
merly Research Fellow in the School of Education at the University of
Cambridge. Her publications include Challenging Democracy: International
Perspectives on Gender, Education and Citizenship: (with Madeleine Arnot)
(2000). She has contributed to journals including the British Journal of
Sociology of Education, Curriculum Inquiry, British Journal of Educational
Studies and Theory and Research in Social Education.
Sharon Gewirtz is Lecturer in Social Policy at the Open University. Her

publications include Specialization and Choice in Urban Education (with
Geoff Whitty and Tony Edwards) (1993), Markets, Choice and Equity in
Education (with Stephen Ball and Richard Bowe) (1995), Rethinking Social
Policy (with Gail Lewis and John Clarke) (2000), New Managerialism, New
Welfare? (with John Clarke and Eugene McLaughlin) (2000) and The
Managerial School (2001). She is a member of the editorial boards of the
Journal of Education Policy, the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and
Education and Social Justice.
David Gillborn is Professor of Education and Head of Policy Studies at the

Institute of Education, University of London. His publications include
Racism and Antiracism in Real Schools (1995), Recent Research on the Achieve-
ments of Ethnic Minority Pupils (with Caroline Gipps) (1996) and Rationing
Notes on the Contributors xi
Education: policy, practice, reform and equity (with Deborah Youdell) (2000).
He is founding editor of the journal, Race, Ethnicity and Education.
Peter Kelly is a Lecturer in Social and Behavioural Studies in the Faculty

of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Queensland,
Australia. He recently completed a PhD titled `Risk and the Regulation
of Youthful Identities in an Age of Manufactured Uncertainty' and he
has written for the Journal of Youth Studies, the Journal of Adolescence and
the British Journal of Sociology of Education.
Jane Kenway is Professor of Education in the Language and Literacy

Research Centre in the School of Education at the University of
South Australia. Her publications include Marketing Education: Some Crit-
ical Issues (1995), Gender Matters in Educational Administration and Policy:
A Feminist Introduction (1994) (with Jill Blackmore), Critical Visions: Policy
and Curriculum Rewriting the Future of Education, Gender and Work (1995)
(with Sue Willis), Answering back: girls, boys and feminism in schools
(1998) (with Sue Willis, Jill Blackmore and LeÂonie Rennie), and Econom-
ising Education: the Post Fordist Directions (1994). She is on the editorial
boards of International Journal of Inclusive Education, Discourse, Interna-
tional Journal of Cultural Policy Studies and Australian Educational
Review.
Anoop Nayak is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at the Uni-

versity of Newcastle upon Tyne. His publications include Invisible Euro-
peans? Black people in the New Europe (1993) (with Les Back). He is editor
of the special issue of the journal Body & Society on `racialized bodies'.
His research interests include masculinities and education; youth sub-
cultures; race, ethnicity and whiteness.
Sally Power is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education,

University of London. She is co-author of Grant Maintained Schools:
Education in the Market Place (with John Fitz and David Halpin) (1993)
and Devolution and Choice in Education: The School, the State and the
Market (with David Halpin and Geoff Whitty) (1998). She is a member
of the editorial board of International Studies in Sociology of Education and
the Journal of Education Policy.
Lawrence Saha is Reader in Sociology at the Australian National Uni-

versity. His publications include Education and National Development: A
Comparative Perspective (with Ingemar FaÈgerlind) (1989) and Schooling
xii Notes on the Contributors
and Society in Australia: Sociological Perspectives (with John Keeves)

(1990). He is an editor of The International Encyclopedia of the Sociology
of Education (1997). He is associate editor for the Social Psychology
of Education, advisory editor for the International Journal of Education-
al Research and a member of the editorial board of The Australian
Monitor.
Geoff Short is Reader in Educational Research at the University of

Hertfordshire. His publications include Race and the Primary School:
Theory into Practice (with Bruce Carrington) (1989). He has written
widely on ethnicity and education and is currently working on Holo-
caust education and on the question of citizenship.
Christine Skelton is Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Depart-

ment of Education at the University of Newcastle. Her publications
include Whatever Happens to Little Women? Gender and Primary Schooling
(1989) and Schooling the Boys: Masculinities and Primary Schools (2000).
She is a member of the editorial board of Gender and Education.
Fay Smith is Lecturer in Education in the Department of Education at

the University of Newcastle. Her PhD was on the relationship between
teaching methods and student learning style, and her research interests
are in language and communication and in lifelong learning. She has
written for the Journal of Vocational Education and Training, the Cambridge
Journal of Education and Studies in Teaching and Learning.
Richard Tomlin is Managing Director of Community of Science Incorp-

orated, Baltimore, United States of America and Visiting Lecturer in the
Department of Education at the University of Newcastle. His publica-
tions include A Study of the Impact of the 1992 RAE (with Ian McNay)
(1995), Developing a Strategic Role for Technology Transfer (1996) and
Research League Tables: is there a better way? (1997). He is an adviser
to the European Commission on research management and related
issues.
Carol Vincent is Senior Lecturer in Policy Studies at the Institute of

Education, London University. Her publications include Parents and
Teachers: Power and Participation (1996) and Including Parents? Citizenship,
Education and Parental Agency (2000). She is a member of the editorial
board of the International Journal of Inclusive Education, the British Journal
of Sociology of Education and the Journal of Education Policy.
Notes on the Contributors xiii
Geoff Whitty was formerly Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of

Education and is now Director of the Institute of Education, University
of London. His publications include The State and Private Education: An
Evaluation of the Assisted Places Scheme (with John Fitz and Tony
Edwards) (1989), Specialization and Choice in Urban Education: The City
Technology College Experiment (with Sharon Gewirtz and Tony Edwards)
(1993) and Devolution and Choice in Education: The School, the State and the
Market (with David Halpin and Sally Power) (1998). He is a member of
the editorial board of International Studies in Sociology of Education and
the British Journal of Sociology of Education.
Sue Willis is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash

University, Australia. Her publications include Real girls don't do maths:
gender and the construction of privilege (1989), Being numerate: what counts?
(1990) (with Jane Kenway), Hearts and minds: self esteem and the schooling
of girls (1990), Telling tales: girls and schools changing their ways (1993),
Critical Visions: Policy and Curriculum Rewriting the Future of Education,
Gender and Work (1995) (with Jane Kenway), Critical visions: rewriting the
future of work, schooling and gender (1996) and Answering back: girls, boys
and feminism in schools (1998) (with Jill Blackmore, Jane Kenway and
LeÂonie Rennie).
Deborah Youdell is Research Associate in the Faculty of Education,

University of Sydney. Previously, she worked as a researcher at the
Institute of Education, University of London. Her publications include
Rationing Education: policy, practice, reform & equity (2000) (with David
Gillborn).
Introduction: Research in Sociology
of Education Today
Jack Demaine
In the two decades since my Contemporary Theories in the Sociology of

Education (Demaine 1981) sociology of education has continued to
develop and indeed thrive. In the first chapter of this new book Roger
Dale offers an account of developments in the sociology of education
over the last half century. He argues that much of the subject matter,
theoretical inclinations, meta-theoretical assumptions and methodolo-
gies that characterize the sociology of education emerged from the
operation of what he refers to as a `selection principle'. He suggest that
during the period from the end of the Second World War three factors ±
context, purpose and location ± combined to create the selection prin-
ciple that framed the focus and approaches of the sociology of educa-
tion. He argues that the selection principle took different forms at
different periods of time as the relative weight and the relationship of
the component parts altered.
In the chapter that follows, `Feminist Sociology of Education:
dynamics, debates and directions', Jo-Anne Dillabough and Madeleine
Arnot discuss the impact of feminist research especially on girls' and
women's education. They argue that feminist research is characterized
by its flexibility ± its power lies in its ability to keep up with changing
circumstances and to adapt its research agenda to engage critically
with social democratic ideals as well as with neo-conservative reform
programmes. Current research offers rich data on the relationship
between government-led educational reforms and the processes of
gender identification, and on the consequences of gender change on
the patterns of educational performance. Jo-Anne Dillabough and
Madeleine Arnot argue that through the strength of its policy analysis
and research, feminist sociologists have been able to use their own
yardstick of social justice to question and challenge the implementation
1
2 Sociology of Education Today
of government programmes in relation to male and female patterns of

education.
Sharon Gewirtz addresses concepts at work in discourse on social
justice in Chapter 3. She argues that given the centrality of issues of
social justice to policy±sociology research in education, further concept-
ual work is needed to extend the boundaries of what is usually thought
of as social justice. She draws on Iris Marion Young's sophisticated
conceptualization of social justice to delineate a social justice agenda
that education policy±sociology might pursue.
In Chapter 4, David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell are also concerned
with social justice in relation to education. They explore the school-
based processes `that might explain why, at a time of rising overall
achievement, there has also been a consistent increase in relative
inequalities of attainment, especially in relation to social class and
ethnic origin'. They focus on one particular aspect of the processes,
namely, the role of àbility' in the dominant discourses, arguing that
ability has come to be understood by policy makers and by practitioners
as a proxy for common-sense notions of ìntelligence'. They argue that
àbility' is constituted in ways that provide for the systematic disadvant-
aging of particular socially defined groups, especially children of work-
ing-class and Black/African-Caribbean heritage, allowing discredited
and abhorrent ideologies of hereditarian IQism to exercise a powerful
influence on the realities of contemporary education.
There is much work to be done in the field of ethnicity, racism and
education. In Chapter 5, `New Teachers and the Question of Ethnicity',
Christine Skelton, Fay Smith, Richard Tomlin, and Jack Demaine report
on part of their two-year research into ethnic minority recruitment to
teaching. In this chapter, the focus is on research undertaken in 15
English universities and an institution providing `school-centred' initial
teacher training. The chapter reports on measures taken to attract ethnic
minority trainees to teaching, and examines strategies employed by
training institutions and their partnership schools to support ethnic
minority students during the course of their training.
In Chapter 6 we turn to another, rather different, arena of vocational
training. Jane Kenway, Peter Kelly and Sue Willis report on their research
in Western Australia into how a vocational education and training
programme in a local secondary college was `manufactured' to fit its
location and how youthful identities too are manufactured. Their
research elaborates on the ways in which `regional entrepreneurs' both
in the school and in the locality customized the vocational education
Introduction 3
and training programme in order to `design' young workers in response

to their globalized context.
In Chapter 7, Lynn Davies develops a range of arguments around
the theme of the globalized context of education. She argues that
three of the most important strands in sociology of education today
are sociology of development, sociology of democracy and sociology of
deviance. `They are not often put together, but global trends suggest a
new combination of thinking which would lead to a more proactive
role for sociologists of education.' Her chapter provides a way of
reconceptualizing the macro and micro, structure and agency, drawing
on the newer fields of chaos and complexity theory, and contextualizing
the systems approach through human rights theory and practice.
In Chapter 8, Lawrence Saha also discusses the influence of global
social and economic tendencies, arguing that the comparative study of
education has shown how varied are the roles and structures of educa-
tion in different cultural settings. He concludes that the field of com-
parative education has provided sufficient evidence to dispel any
assumptions about there being a single model of education appropriate
for all countries. Education is a major agent for the economic, social and
political improvement of society, but only if it is adapted and used in a
manner appropriate to the cultural context of a particular country.
In Chapter 9, Stephen Ball and Carol Vincent are concerned with
Britain and, specifically, with new class relations in education and the
strategies of what they refer to as `the fearful middle classes'. As with the
following Chapter 10, their work is part of a broader effort within the
sociology of education to write social class back into the analytical
problematic of the discipline. Ball and Vincent show how current social
and economic conditions underpin the reworking of the sociology of
class differentiation in education. They conclude that despite the
increasing fluidity and complexity of social relations in high modernity,
and the decline of traditional class politics, social class position still goes
a long way towards determining life chances, although societal frag-
mentation may render this more opaque.
In Chapter 10 Sally Power also addresses the question of the middle
class. There is a general absence of a sociology of the middle class and
of a sociology of educating the middle class in particular because,
traditionally, the social scientific `gaze' has been directed towards the
working classes, the poor and the dispossessed, and also at the wealthy
and powerful. This is particularly so with respect to education, but
examination of the intimate relationship between education and the
middle class and the complex way in which schools foster differentiated
middle-class identities can illuminate how `success' is constructed and

distributed, and how this success contributes to social and cultural
reproduction.
In Chapter 11, Geoff Whitty discusses recent reforms that have
sought to dismantle centralized bureaucracies and create in their place
devolved systems of schooling with an emphasis on consumer choice.
Sometimes, alongside these elements of deregulation, there have also
been new systems of inspection and accountability. He suggests that,
although these developments are sometimes described as privatization,
it is difficult to argue that education has actually been privatized on any
significant scale. In most countries, marketization is a better metaphor
for what has been happening in relation to education. The development
of `quasi-markets' in state-provided services has involved a combination
of increased parental choice and school autonomy, together with a
greater or lesser degree of public accountability and government regula-
tion. He notes Chris Woodhead's call for a `third way' for the sociology
of education involving, among other things, a return to its `classical
terrain' in an effort to regain the ìntellectual high ground it occupied'
in Karl Mannheim's time. But, as Whitty correctly concludes, the appli-
cation of Mannheim's legacy to the contemporary educational scene
would not necessarily lead to research findings that Woodhead himself
would wish to see, any more than it would necessarily lead to the
policies of New Labour, for that matter.
Of course, the chapters in this book represent but a fragment of the
work of sociologists of education around the world, but they demon-
strate some of the diversity and complexity of their research. This
evidence of diversity leads to the conclusion that there is no single
`way forward', no royal road, no shining path to ultimate truths about
education and its processes. Rather, there is a lot of interesting work in
progress and much more still to be done.
1
Shaping the Sociology of Education
over Half-a-Century
Roger Dale
In this chapter I want to argue that much of the subject matter, theore-
tical inclinations, meta-theoretical assumptions and methodologies
that characterize the sociology of education can be seen to emerge,
not so much from a conscious process of academic or intellectual
deliberation, as from the operation of what I will refer to as a `selection
principle'. This selection principle has three components: the wider
political contexts within which the sociology of education has operated;
the nature of what I will suggest is its dominant project; and the circum-
stances and conditions in which it has been practised. I shall suggest
that over the 50 years following the end of the Second World War, which
is the time span I shall cover, these three factors, that can be presented
in a shorthand if not comprehensive way, as context, purpose and
location, combined to create the selection principle that framed the
focus and approaches of the discipline. This selection principle took
different forms at different periods as the relative weight and the rela-
tionship of the component parts altered. I shall especially consider how
these different forms of the selection principle influenced the
discipline's focus and its theoretical approaches, and the consequences
of their relationship for the nature and strength of its theoretical output.
The basic argument is far from new or novel. It was put relevantly and
succinctly by Karabel and Halsey in one of the defining texts of the
sociology of education in the 1970s, when they argued that `sociology
has been influenced more by its social context than by any `ìnner logic''
of the development of the discipline' (1977, 28). However, my aim in
this chapter is to elaborate that idea somewhat and to give it some
substance and specificity in the context of an account of the changes
in the sociology of education. To advance this, I shall seek to outline the
nature and operation of the selection principle across three distinct
5
periods in the last 50 years, to show how the parts of the selection
principle combined over those periods and with what consequences
for the discipline.
Elaboration may proceed by considering some objections to this argu-
ment. An especially useful critique of the `sociology of sociology of
education' approach is provided by Geoffrey Walford in the introduction
to a collection of chapters describing the research process in sociology of
education (Walford, 1987). Walford begins by criticizing, quite rightly,
accounts of the history of the sociology of education that view it às a
fairly linear process with a succession of new theoretical perspectives,
problems and methods supplanting the old' (p.2). However, his grounds
for this criticism are not that such accounts decontextualise the
discipline and tend implicitly to tie its `development' to an unexplicated
evolutionary principle, but that they are inadequate empirically; `quite
simply (these accounts) do not cover the majority of research and
publications in what most people (sic) would accept as the sociology
of education' (p.3). And while accepting that the model is à fairly
reasonable indication of how the discipline has been presented to others
at various historical periods since the war' (p.3), he puts the shifts down
to changes in theoretical fashion. Walford goes on to suggest that while
these `changes in fashion can be newsworthy. . . the majority of
researchers do not follow changes in fashion.' (ibid). These people just
get on with their work; they ùsually go on wearing their old clothes,
watching each succeeding generation don the current fad. They are
aware that if they wait long enough their old clothes may come back
into fashion and that few of the new innovations are new anyway.'
The basis of this cynical and `commonsensical' reaction seems to be
Walford's belief that sociology of education is not just `What ``most
people'' think it is', but `what sociological researchers do', in a very literal
sense. He emphasizes that `doing research is a profoundly pragmatic
and down-to-earth activity' and points to the numerous problems
involved in that activity; not surprizingly, first among these problems
are finance and time. The difficulty with this view of the sociology of
education is that it reduces its focus to an unproblematic `what most
people think it is', and its approach to a preference of research method,
apparently uninformed by any theoretical or methodological `fads or
fashions', and able to ignore the wider political and locational factors
that generate the `practical' problems of time and money. This kind of
voluntarism turns the study of the discipline into a search for the weight
of personal preference, periodically disturbed by mercurial changes in
fashion. That is to say, it is a sociology of education that excludes itself
Shaping the Sociology of Education 7
from the possibility of being the object of sociological study. And that,
really, is the key point; isolating a selection principle and reflecting on
its effects enables us to do for our discipline what we claim to do for
others.
Three important and useful points that can be extracted from the
critique of Walford's approach. The first is that it is not necessary for
the selection principle, or any of its component parts, to be consciously
recognized for it to be effective; quite the opposite on occasion, as
Walford seems to be telling us when he alludes to the resistance shown
to what are seen as changes in fashion. The second is that the selection
principle is not confined to one particular set of approaches, those that
may be classified as theoretical fads and fashions. For instance, other
means than `theoretical understanding' or public advocacy may be
employed to achieve a purpose; demonstration, various kinds of action
and collaboration with practitioners and policy analysis are examples of
combinations of focus and approach that the selection principle may
promote.
Finally, it is no part of the argument to suggest that all sociologists of
education are similarly affected by changes in the selection principle.
The selection principle is just that; it is a principle not a formula. It acts
as a filter, rather than moulds, still less determines. It does not have an
homogenizing effect on the discipline because its impact varies accord-
ing to the precise local valuations of its component parts.
The form of the paper will be as follows. In the next section I shall
elaborate on the components of the selection principle. I will then
discuss how they have combined at three different periods in the dis-
cipline's postwar history and how the selection principle based on these
elements influenced the focus and approaches of the sociology of edu-
cation in those periods.
Purpose: the dominant project
The importance of focusing on the `purpose' of the discipline is made

clear by Karabel and Halsey, (1977). While they do not address the
nature of the social context systematically, they do give some promin-
ence to the notion, taken from Alvin Gouldner, of the ìnfrastructure'
of social theory. This is composed of `the sentiments, the domain
assumptions, the conceptions of reality accented by personal experi-
ence' that `constitute its individual and social grounding' (Gouldner,
1971, 29±49, 396±7, quoted in Karabel and Halsey, op. cit., 29). And the
authors have earlier ± `because of our belief that personal background is
an important factor in shaping the interpretation of a field, its signif-

icant theories, and relevant methods' ± declared that what brought them
together was `not only a common sociological interest in education but
also a shared political vizion of a classless education system dedicated to
the pursuit of what Raymond Williams has called a common culture'
(op. cit., vi). This is a very clear and explicit statement of what I mean by
purpose.
I want to suggest that the substance of the sociology of education's
purpose in the period under review has been essentially redemptive and
emancipatory. Education has been seen as both the dominant symbol
and the dominant strategy for that mastery of nature and of society
through rationality that has characterized the project of modernity from
its origins in the Enlightenment. On the other hand, it has been a
keystone of attempts to extend the benefits of progress to whole popula-
tions, indeed to the whole of humanity. It has come to stand for the
possibility of individual and collective improvement, individual and
collective emancipation. Since it really began to develop as a discipline
in the 1950s, almost all of the sociology of education in Britain has,
however implicitly, taken that project of social redemption/emancipa-
tion through universal provizion as a central normative guideline and
has concentrated its energies, in rather diverse ways, on identifying
and removing the obstacles to the attainment of that unproblematic and
rarely questioned goal. That basic purpose has, of course, been inter-
preted in a wide variety of ways in the past 50 years, but what it is crucial
to note here is that those variations in interpretation themselves have
their basis in the relationship between purpose and the other two com-
ponents of the selection principle. For instance, as we shall see, the
almost symbiotic relationship btween sociology of education and the
burgeoning KWS settlement in the late 1950s and early 1960s was
important not just in itself but in the model it provided for future
sociologists of education; the viability of the redemptive/emancipatory
purpose was clearly demonstrated.
However, the purpose of the sociology has tended to be tempered
by some of the assumptions that derive from that early positive
climate. In particular, it means that as John Meyer argues, `the sociology
of education stays rather close to the scientific theorizing built into the
educational system . . . . The main lines of thought in the sociology of
education . . . arise as sociological commentary on the institutionalized
science of education. They parallel the system at every point, asking
the sociological questions and expressing sociological skepticism about
it . . . they tend to accept the assumptions and explanations built into
the system itself and then to question whether they are real in actual
social life' (Meyer,1986,341,343, emphases in original). In particular, the
sociology of education has as its central questions the two main pur-
poses of modern education systems, progress and inequality. The former
is based on the idea that `the educational reconstruction and expansion
of individuals will produce social development', the latter on the idea
that Èducation is to create an equal citizenry and to legitimate any
inequality on meritocratic grounds.' (ibid. 344) Sociological comment-
ary on these issues is almost all `pro-education, that is, in support of the
official theory if this theory could be made to work . . . . Most critics
dream of the improvement, not the elimination, of education' (ibid.,
emphasis in original).
Meyer argues that this produces a sociology of education that is
deeply functionalist in character, due to its inability to transcend the
legitimacy of the rational and purposive nature of education as an ideal.
He suggests that whether in studying individuals, organizations or
macro-sociological questions the styles of explanation leave something
to be desired, leaving many areas of education unnoticed or little
discussed. It might be suggested that this relationship to the education
system treats it as resource rather than topic, and takes it for granted as
the means to deliver redemption rather than as itself an object of
enquiry. Further, and for Meyer most important, the failure to question
the fundamental nature and claims of the education system leads to an
almost total neglect of any alternative to the official conception of what
education systems are for. To put it more starkly, èducation' becomes
unproblematic for the sociology of education. And further it might be
suggested that this fundamental stance has persisted across the period
under review and that it may have constituted a major, but unrecognized,
obstacle, to the development of new types of theoretical approach in the
discipline.
The point I am trying to make about the importance and place of
the prominence of its purpose in shaping the focus and approach of the
sociology of education can be amplified if we compare the situation that
Meyer describes in the discipline with that in other `specialist' areas of
sociology. Consider, for instance, the sociology of religion and the
sociology of the family. In neither of these cases is the promotion of a
particular view, whether official or unofficial, of a desirable set of
arrangements for the area of social life or activity involved. This is not
to say, of course, that there are not sociologists in both these fields with
committed and clear views of the proper role and nature of the family or
of religion. It is, though, to say that these views do not influence the
focus and approach of the field in the same way as I am suggesting that
the `redemptive project' has influenced the sociology of education.
Location: the conditions of academic work
What equally importantly differentiates the sociology of education from

other sub-areas of sociology, such as the sociology of religion or the
sociology of the family, is that neither of them is as closely involved in
professional training as the sociology of education. And, possibly as a
consequence of this, sociology of education has never been a high status
branch of sociology. Whatever the reason, this has increased the import-
ance of its relation to teacher education as the key institutional location
of sociology of education.
There are a number of very important features of this institutional
location. Before I discuss them in more detail it is necessary to make two
important points. First, nothing that is said about the effect on the
sociology of education, its theoretical orientations or the outcomes of
its location in institutions where teacher education is the main or a very
significant sustaining activity should be read as implying that these
effects are inevitable results of either that location, or of the kinds of
academic work that goes on there, or of the interests of people who are
attracted to work there. There is nothing inherently less àcademic'
about what goes on in `professional' departments. Second, the nature
of the institutional location was dramatically altered in the 1980s and
1990s by reforms of the political control over teacher education. This
meant a conspicuous and massive increase in political monitoring and
control of the work of departments of teacher education. However,
while this has had a major effect on the issues I am discussing, the
point I am trying to make is neither stimulated by that new regime
nor dependent on or confined to its effects.
Among the most important features of the institutional location are
the following:
i(i) It implies, and possibly requires, some level of commitment on the

part of those working there to the system for which they are pre-
paring their students. That this may be a critical commitment does
not alter the fact that it is the system as it exists that is the focus of
critique (or commentary, as Meyer (1986) would have it).
(ii) It involves some minimal level of contribution to the development
of professional practice. And though teacher educators, including
sociologists of education, may be very influential definers of
professional reality for teachers, the professionals themselves

clearly have an influence on that definition, which may not be
wholly compatible with the academics'.
(iii) It ensures that academics are kept aware of what is happening in
schools and other educational institutions. It did not require a
ministerial directive on the necessity of `recent and relevant' class-
room experience to ensure that teacher educators were kept in
touch with the practicalities of school life.
(iv) In addition to these institutional factors themselves, the fact of
their being the basis of the shared experiences and understandings
of a large proportion of sociologists of education is also very sign-
ificant. This experience provides a key joint problematic around
which we might expect a professional culture to develop.
i(v) The very institutions in which they work are themselves founded
on, and to a degree dependent on, particular assumptions about
the proper and possible role of teacher education and of the place
of sociology of education within it. Central to these assumptions
are two that have a clear affinity with the purpose of the sociology
of education, collective (through the banishment of inequality)
and individual (through the application of progressive methods)
redemption.
These features have a range of consequences which may shape the focus
and approaches of the sociology of education in crucial ways. They place
a premium on the immediacy and `practicality' of the analysis. They
contain a bias in the direction of repairing, restoring and maintaining
the system as it exists for those who work in it.
Another very significant facet of the institutional location of the
sociology of education is its view of teachers. This varies considerably
across different approaches in the discipline. In some accounts teachers
have been seen as mere dupes of the system who unwittingly act as
social selectors and arbiters of children's careers and are powerless to do
anything to change it. In others they have been seen almost as the shock
troops of the revolution to be brought about by means of the education
system, or at least as the critical pedagogues who have it in their power
to demystify the world, to undermine the hegemony perpetuated
through schooling. In yet others they scarcely merit a mention. Some
approaches stress the nature of teaching as work, or as a career. Others
focus on who become teachers, on their social background. One major
strand of work in the sociology of education, classroom ethnography,
has teachers as its central focus.
Overall, however, sociology of education has been characterized by a

kind of `hands off' approach to the work of teachers. That is to say, there
is a tendency, which is exemplified particularly in the approaches that
see teaching as what teachers do, not only to avoid criticism of teachers
but to avoid getting into situations where criticism may be called forth.
Teachers may be seen as exhibiting false consciousness, or as having their
autonomy seriously curtailed by external structural forces, but rarely if
ever are they submitted to systematic criticism on the basis of their
performance. Instead, the response, for instance when an industrialist
publishes an article `blaming the teachers', is to deny the charge and to
defend the teachers and to point to the interested location of the com-
ment. Similarly, denial rather than discussion has been the response to
the charges of `provider capture' that have been levelled at teachers in
several countries since the mid 1980s. The point is not whether or not the
charges can be sustained but the assumption that they are necessarily
politically motivated attacks on teachers ± and nothing else ± and hence
can be ignored. Part of the problem is that in terms of the selection
principle hardly any other response is possible; in terms of both purpose
and location teachers have to be seen as effectively beyond criticism, on
the one hand because practitioners are dependent on them to bring about
redemption, on the other because they are the bread and butter of the
discipline, which, moreover, helped train them. In neither case does this
lead to the theorization of teaching, which might form a basis of critique
of teaching practices, becoming a high priority.
Three other aspects of the institutional location require mention. One
is the career structure within the discipline and its effect on its focus and
approaches. I have no firm statistical evidence on this, but impression-
istically, it seems that two categories of achievement are associated
with progress in the career, publication record and administrative
experience in teacher education. The second aspect is important in
linking location and purpose. It concerns the generational nature of
British sociology of education. For a number of contextual reasons ±
that on the one hand saw its numbers peak very early, and on the other
saw a planned decline in the opportunities available to later generations
of sociologists of education in teacher education ± a single generation,
that recruited at relatively young ages in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
is still the largest and most influential in the discipline. Evidence of this
is the fact that the editorial board of the British Journal of Sociology of
Education is still dominated by members of that generation. For
instance, membership of the Executive Board has remained almost static
throughout the journal's 20 years of publication, while relatively recent
additions to the Advisory Board have scarcely reduced the large majority
of `first generation' members. Third, and most important, in the last
decade the institutional location has been augmented by expectations
relating to research performance. Great pressure is put on all departments
to maximize their academic output and their research income. I have
suggested elsewhere (Dale 1994) that these pressures lead to `premature
application' (and, we might add, sometimes premature publication) of the
outputs of research. In the particular area of interest, much of the research
funding available to sociologists of education is controlled by sources
with interests in and commitments to the education system. It does not
necessarily follow that research funded from such sources cannot be
critical, or go beyond the expectations of the funders. Nevertheless, it is
not unlikely that sponsored research undertaken by sociologists of
education may (be required to) assume the òfficial' parameters of the
education system and hence require conscious and special efforts to
transcend these parameters. And when this is placed alongside the
tendency not to make èducation' problematic, there is a serious danger
± in terms of both its likelihood and its consequences ± that sociologists
may find themselves, unwittingly, confirming òfficial' definitions of
èducation'.
Context: opportunities and constraints
In a rather loose sense, context could be seen as the independent

variable in this analysis, and most of the discussion of it will focus on
the details of the contexts under which sociology of education operated
in each separate period. However, it may be worthwhile to point out
how the sociology of education's perception of the context in which it
was operating was framed, and at some of the ways the nature and scope
of `context' may be taken for granted. Essentially, the political context
of the sociology of education was on the one hand interpreted through
the prism of the dominant purpose, while on the other hand its impact
was defined very largely through its effect on its institutional location.
Separately and together, these perceptions produced a partial, not to say
distorted, picture of the nature and significance of the context for the
discipline. While reducing the effect of political context to its effect on
the institutional locations in which sociologists of education work tends
to produce a somewhat muted and narrow conception of its scope and
impact, judging it largely on the basis of how propitious it might
turn out to be for the promotion of the dominant purpose tends simul-
taneously to inflate the significance of its ideological aspects and
typically to restrict the recognition of those aspects to changes of

governing party or political emphasis. That both these perceptions
have often been accurate should not blind us either to their own partial
nature or to other ways that political context impinges on the focus
and approaches of the sociology of education. Two of these merit
brief mention. One is the danger of neglecting the importance of
ìnstitutional' changes, for instance in the mode of policymaking or
implementation. The other is the danger of seeing context as offering
only constraints and ignoring its effect on the channels through which
the discipline's message could be delivered, how it could have an effect,
and new opportunities that context changes may enable.
The selection principle and the focus and approaches of the

sociology of education in Britain, 1950±95
I will now examine, briefly, the relationship between the selection

principle and the focus and approaches of the sociology of education
at three phases in Britain since 1945. In each case I will set out
how purpose, location and context combine to form the selection
principle and consider how they relate to the focus and approaches
that characterize the discipline.
Before doing that I should note the basis of the periodization I shall
use. Since it is central to my argument that it is the external political
context, rather than internal, `discipline-driven' shifts, that underlies
changes to the focus and approaches of the sociology of education, that
context is used as the basis of periodization; this also removes any
suggestion of a post hoc mapping of the one on to the other. Any period-
ization is relatively arbitrary and no doubt the period under review
could be divided up in many finer, or even coarser, ways. However, I
think it is possible to distinguish three relatively distinct periods,
though of course the precise transition points vary across different
parts of the public sector. They are the period of what is commonly
known as the Keynesian Welfare State settlement, which ran from the
end of the war and began eventually to crumble definitively in the
middle of the 1970s: the period that followed this, which completed
the transition from the KWS but without there being a definitive
settlement in respect of the political context of education until
the third term of the Thatcher government in the middle of the
1980s: this may be seen to have been in retreat since the election
of the Blair government, which I will take as the end of the third
period.
1950±75
The purpose that guided the sociology of education over at least the
first-half of this period had its roots in the widespread determination to
rebuild the world in ways that would overcome the social evils of the
1920s and 30s. This had three main aspects: an emphasis of the role of
education in creating a technologically based society, a desire to make
education the central component of the attack on social inequality,
including inequality in education itself; and its role in easing the adjust-
ment to a rapidly changing society. In his fine analysis of the sociology
of education in this period Bill Williamson suggests that `(The) basic
demand is that policies in the field of education should be grounded in a
knowledge of the social facts of unequal provizion and inequality. Their
work made a wide appeal to a wide audience, but its basic orientation
was dictated by a desire for social democratic change to a more equal
society' (Williamson,1974,6). And while, by the middle of the period,
affluence had increased and by the end of it unemployment had begun
to reach serious levels, the purpose remained fundamentally the same,
though rather differently interpreted and pursued by rather different
strategies.
There were two main locations from which this purpose was to be
achieved; departments of sociology, especially the London School of
Economics, which had given birth to the political arithmetic tradition
in which the purpose was based, and government statistical research,
which was carried out in connection with the major postwar reports on
education ± Èarly Leaving' and the Crowther Report were prominent
examples, but the use of such reports as a major means of setting
education policy continued throughout the period and all of them
made some use of sociological expertise.
The political context was, as noted above, dominated by the KWS
settlement. The constraints on the sociology of education were few
and the opportunities presented to the sociology of education were
many and powerful. That context had a clearly defining effect on the
possibility as well as the orientation of the sociology of education. It was
benign and encouraging in that the social democratic welfare state
reforms set in place by the Labour government from 1945±51 almost
required a sociology of education to assist in its development and
growth. It provided a positive external context and ample opportunities
for advocacy. These reached their peak with the close links between the
leading sociologist of education, A.H. Halsey, and Anthony Crosland,
the Labour minister of education.
The three elements combined in a selection principle that was clear and
quite explicit. Sociology of education should focus on understanding the
structures and institutions of inequality on the role of education in the
persistence of that inequality and the relationship between education
and the economy. This focus is well represented in the first reader in the
sociology of education, though with what may now seem a surprizingly
strong emphasis on the relationship between education and the eco-
nomy. For instance, the Preface states that the volume is `narrowly
focused on the connection of education in modern society with the
economic and class structure' (Halsey, Floud and Anderson, 1961, v.)
while the first sentence of the Introduction reads, Èducation is a crucial
type of investment for the exploitation of modern technology' (ibid., 1).
However, by the end of the period, major and radical changes had
become evident in the sociology of education. The indications of the
demise of the KWS were already evident before what is generally taken
as at least the symbolic closing of that settlement, the OPEC price rise in
1974. What was to be a fight to the death between the Conservative
government and the miners had begun and there was a widespread
feeling that an era had come to an end. The events of 1968 had brought
many educational practices into question. One key factor precipitating
the changes in the sociology of education was the apparent failure of the
introduction of legislation requiring local authorities to introduce com-
prehensive secondary schooling, which could be seen as the high water
mark of political arithmetic tradition in the sociology of education
(though it has to be said that the eventual legislation owed rather little
to the arguments of sociologists of education and rather more to the
political pragmatism that was necessary to bring it into being). Not only
was the legislation a long way from being universally implemented, but
it was rapidly becoming clear ± through the work of sociologists of
education like Julienne Ford (1969), for instance ± that it was doing
little if anything to increase equality of opportunity in, and through,
education. These contextual changes were accompanied by significant
changes in location. Particularly important here was the changes in the
pattern of teacher education. In large part through the introduction of
the BEd from the second half of the 1960s, it became both longer and
more academic. This shift provided major new opportunities for sociol-
ogists of education; from that point on, this institutional location, in
different ways at different times, changed the nature of the selection
principle. One other consequence of this growth in the demand for
sociology of education was to strengthen the importance of the courses
on the sociology of education produced in the Open University from the
early 1970s. Though these courses were not directed at teacher educa-
tion their public accessibility was to make them useful and convenient
sources for people required to teach the sociology of education in a wide
range of institutions for much of the next decade-and-a-half.
These major changes in the political and educational context and the
institutional location served to modify the purpose of sociology of
education and led to major changes in its focus and approaches, that
took a range of rather disparate directions, in the early and middle
1970s. The failure of attempts to realize the purpose through structural
change at macro level had two important consequences; they revealed
the ineffectiveness of the `structural reform' strategy for bringing about
greater educational equality and they implied that the problem may not
lie at the structural level. This led to approaches that focused on the
content and processes of education rather than its structure, on how
these affected the realization of the purpose and on how they might be
transformed. The best known example of this shift in focus and
approach is, of course, the New Sociology of Education. An enormous
amount has been written on the NSOE and I do not intend to traverse
that literature here. I merely wish to suggest that its emergence is more
effectively explained by the selection principle than by a spontaneous
embrace of new theoretical fashions.
According to Michael Young, there were three aspects of the NSOE that
relate to its claim to be offering `new directions'; its relation to the
question of educational inequalities; its prioritizing of curriculum as a
topic for the sociology of education; and its emphasis on teachers and
teacher educators as àgents of progressive change'. And he goes on, `what
was not recognized at the time but is striking in retrospect, was the extent
of the similarity of political concerns between those identified with the
NSOE and those whose work it criticized, for example Halsey, Floud,
J.W.B. Douglas and Glass. For both these groups the primary political
question in English education was the persistence of social class
inequalities' (Young, 1988,9). The NSOE, then, represented not so much
a replacement of the redemptive purpose of the sociology of education, as
a challenge to the existing interpretation of it. And that challenge was
enabled and encouraged by changes in the political context and in the
institutional location of sociologists of education. The NSOE, then,
sought to realize the purpose of the sociology of education by means of
radical changes to educational practice based on understanding the con-
tent and processes of schooling, in place of the òld' sociology of educa-
tion's aim of improvement of structures based on an understanding of the
relationship between education and the wider social structure.
1975±85
The purpose of the sociology of education had already begun to be
interpreted in different ways before the OPEC price rise, and those
interpretations continued to multiply over the course of the next
decade, as the political context remained unstabilized and the
institutional location became subject to new pressures, until the
outlines of a new settlement in education began to emerge in the
third term of the Thatcher government. But while the central core of
the purpose remained strongly in place, and education was still seen as
the central key to equalizing life chances, the interpretations and
implications that developed especially over this decade were sufficiently
diverse that they came to challenge the unity of the discipline.
The outstanding change for the sociology of education over this
decade was the transformation in the attitude to education on the part
of governments of both parties. James Callaghan's Ruskin College
speech in 1976 signalled the beginning of a continuing loss of faith in
education; education had lost its place in the sun and it has not since
been awarded the automatic respect and importance that it had enjoyed
in the 20 years after the war. This took the form of a change not just in
discourse but in the institutional structure of the education system, with
the creation of the Manpower Services Commission, for instance,
partially in recognition of the inability of the education system to
produce an adequate response to the increasingly serious problem of
youth unemployment. Both the `traditional' discourse and institutional
structure of the education system had been central to the purpose
and the location of the sociology of education and it was inevitably
threatened by those changes. However, the discipline was to suffer
not just the general consequences of that shift, but measures quite
specifically targeted to reduce its influence and status, such as the denial
of entry into teaching to sociology graduates and the effective removal
of sociology of education from the curriculum of teacher education. The
context became a powerfully constraining one and offered few if any
opportunities to sociology of education.
Many of the effects of those changes in context were mediated
through the changes to its main institutional location, teacher educa-
tion. These saw a very considerable tightening of central control over
teacher education, through the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher
Education in particular, one of whose requirements was that all teacher
educators should themselves be able to demonstrate `recent and
relevant' classroom experience. This was of a piece with the main thrust
of the control of teacher education, ensuring that it was more `relevant'

and placed more emphasis on practice than on theory, especially socio-
logy of education. All this led, as it was intended to, to a contraction not
an expansion of the scope of teacher education and a reduction in the
breadth and depth of its curriculum. The focus was strongly on studies
of educational processes and this was reflected in what was becoming a
more significant component of the location of sociology of education,
research funding. By the end of this period, funded research was
becoming a significant alternative means of sociologists of education
maintaining themselves, and its control and distribution were
becoming much more significant than they had been in the first
period.
The consequences of these shifts were not immediately apparent. The
first distinct change in focus and approach in this period, from the
NSOE to a neo-Marxist analysis, suggested that little had changed;
indeed, it could be seen as a significant strengthening of the purpose.
Furthermore, this shift is one example of a shift occurring within the
selection principle (and one that thereby shows its flexibility). I am
indebted here to an argument advanced by Rob Moore. He
suggests that the impact of Schooling in Capitalist America (Bowles
and Gintis, 1976) (the key text of the neo-Marxist sociology of
education and an Open University set book) `has to be seen . . . within
the context of the radical sociology of education at the time of its
publication' The NSOE, he argues, was confronted by three fundamental
problems:
ii(i) how to achieve a non-positivistic conceptualization of social

structure which preserved the radical humanism of the
phenomenological critique but which did not entail its
rejection of social structure ( and class in particular) as an
ontologically effective category;
i(ii) how to construct a methodological procedure whereby the
class form of social structural relationships could be revealed
within the power relationships of the educational system and
classroom interaction;
(iii) how to retain the possibility of radical action and change,
both within education and in society at large, within a
theoretical framework in which the principle for analysing
social interaction was derived from an assumption of the
determining power of social structure'
(Moore,1988,3)
and, crucially for the argument here, he suggests that `the correspon-
dence principle supplied an apparent resolution of some of the tensions
within these three critical areas' (ibid. p.2) He goes on:
What both Bowles and Gintis and Althusser provided were powerful
articulations of a principle already implicit within a field dominated
by the requirement to conceptualise the notion of social structure
relative to particular concerns with the issues of situational analysis
and radical intervention. . . . However, because of the pre-eminence of
the concern with action . . . the problem of conceptualising social
structure has dominated the development of the field.
(ibid. p.5, emphasis in original)
Here, no elements of the selection principle have altered; the change in

focus and approach is a response to issues internal to the focus and
approach. However, it may be argued that the embrace of a neo-Marxist
perspective, important though it was at the time, may have been a factor
in the marginalization of the discipline. (It may be worth remarking
here that this was possibly the only time when the sociology of educa-
tion moved outside the parameters and assumptions outlined by
Meyer.) I have referred elsewhere to this phase as à Pyrrhic victory. . .
(where) sociology of education . . . proved its point but at potentially
crippling cost that may ensure, through dissipation if by no other
route, a prolonged impotence to accompany its marginalization' (Dale,
1992, 203). The evidence for that dissipation is plentiful. It had its basis
in a `rebranding' strategy that saw `sociology of education' disappearing
from the curriculum to be replaced by `multicultural education', `gender
and education', èducation and work', `school organization', èducation
policy', `classroom studies' and so on. It was also the case that the
`professional' audience continued to take precedence over the `public'
and academic audiences. One result of these factors was a series of
significant bifurcations in the sociology of education between what
were regarded as `micro' and `macro' approaches; between emphases
on agency and structure and between the problematics of redistribution
and recognition. There were some exceptions to this, notably some
lines of feminist research, and education policy, which began to
emerge towards the end of this period and bridged across to the next
one.
The subsequent career of education policy study illustrates well some
of the effects of the selection principle in the second-half of this period.
A key aspect of its importance is that it was associated with the devel-
opment of funded research as a more attractive and flexible dimension

to the teacher education dominated location for sociology of education
(and it should be noted that most of the research on education policy
since this time has been carried out by sociologists of education). Iron-
ically, perhaps, two of the major sources of funding for these activities
were the evaluation of local TVEI schemes (required and funded by the
Manpower Services Commission, which set up the scheme), and the
study of the early reforms introduced by the Thatcher government in
the provision of secondary education, both of which conflicted quite
strongly with many of the principles of the redemptive purpose. How-
ever, these research activities could also be seen as attempts to pursue the
`traditional' strategy of understanding, if not to improve or change, at
least to reveal the nature and consequences of the reforms. Nevertheless,
as became clearer in the next period, these activities by no means
`neutralized' the effects of location on the focus and approaches adopted
by sociologists of education. That is to be expected in the case of the focus
± the topic of research is determined by the funder, though the `contrac-
tors' may be able to interpret it in various ways ± but approaches also are
constrained by the expectations of the funder, who may also retain con-
trol over publication of results and findings. Indeed, Stephen Ball (1998,
p.72) has suggested that the new opportunities were those for ` ``new
identities'' as ``school effectiveness researchers'' and ``management the-
orists''. Around this latter kind of work, a new relationship to policy, or
rather inside policy, was formed. Issues related to system design, analysis
of provision and social justice were replaced by implementation studies
focused on issues like ``quality'', `èvaluation'', ``leadership'' and `àccount-
ability''.' (emphases in original). That is to say, `policy', like èducation'
was taken unproblematically by those who studied it; and as in the case
of education, there has been a tendency for that stance to persist.
Towards the end of this period the importance of the state in educa-
tion policy came to be more widely, if over-simply, recognized. Its appeal
was that it linked the neo-Marxist aspirations of the first half of the
period with the education policy focus of the second half. A focus on the
state was taken both as a basis for understanding what was going on in
education and as the means through which change might be brought
about, or, at least, undesirable change obstructed. However, the value of
this approach, too, was vitiated by its ad hoc application in the pursuit of
immediate application (see Dale, 1992); and the failure to problematise
the concept of the state was to lead to distinct difficulties in coming to
terms with the changing conditions of the next period, many of which
centred around its changing role.
The experience of this period also highlights the importance of two

other features of the selection principle. The first comes from a more
recent article by Rob Moore. Essentially, in the terms used here, he
argues that the selection principle operates to make invisible research
findings that fall outside the approaches it underlies. His focus is how
the evidence of the academic success of black girls is accounted for in
approaches that emphasize factors that would deny that success. He
suggests that it is rendered invisible, because
it reflects the problem of pupils performing in ways counter to the

positions assigned them by reproduction theories of education. The
success of girls and blacks is a difficulty for paradigms constructed
around meta-narratives of education as an agent of patriarchy or
racism.
(Moore,1996,148)
He points also to the reception of Maureen Stone's book, The Education

of the Black Child in Britain. `Few studies', Moore claims, `have been so
right about so much. Yet it cannot be seen as having acquired the central
position it deserves. The reason for this is clear. The one thing that Stone
did not do was to endorse progressivism and its EO variants.' (ibid, 159,
emphasis in original).
However, he does not see this as a matter of selection or preference
within approaches but as resulting from the dominance of what he refers
to as `sociology for education', a `sociology of weak effects . . . (that)
focusses on internal features of the system . . . (is) limited by its field
location (teacher training), tending to ``take'' its problems rather than
``make'' problems through the external criteria of critical social theory.'
(ibid, 158) As he puts it, `Stone's (Gramsci-inspired) view that `tradi-
tional' academic education best suits the interests of black and working-
class pupils problematises the standpoint of sociology for education
. . . (ibid 159, emphasis in original). Moore clearly identifies location as
the main reason for the `blindness' to which he draws attention. He
elaborates and embeds a point made above;
Sociologies for education are oriented towards the interests of practi-

tioners. A typical feature of EO writing is its claim to a special rela-
tionship with teachers ± celebrating, for instance, the alliance
between the feminist researcher and the feminist teacher. . . The
major problem with taking the standpoint of the field in this way is
that the structure of the field comes to be reproduced in the theory,
for instance in the way the traditional/progressive dichotomy has

come to be reproduced within the sociology of education.
(ibid, 158)
This example illustrates very well how the context-imposed framing of

location combined ± and may still do so ± with particular interpretations
of purpose to set very clear theoretical parameters for some sociologists
of education.
The other example of the effects of the selection principle on the
approaches adopted in the sociology of education is drawn from a recent
article by Francis Schrag, entitled `Why Foucault Now?' (1999). Schrag is
baffled by the apparent appeal to educationists of Foucault's work, the
logic of which he considers bears a strong resemblance to structural±
functional accounts. In a nutshell, his explanation is that appealing
to Foucault enables scholars who wish to maintain their commitment
to egalitarianism in the face of schools' apparent immunity to change
to give expression to both the aspiration for transformation and to

the despair regarding this possibility. . . . To put my point in a more
Gallic manner; by embracing Foucault, scholars can announce their
resignation to the status quo while appearing to protest it. (381)
Schrag is writing of the situation post-1989, but his comments have

clear relevance to the period of confusion that followed the demise of
the neo-Marxist sociology of education.
These examples suggest that the main elements of the focus of the
sociology of education in the latter half of this period may be captured
in the following; they are not presented in any order of priority.
ii(i) An emphasis on curriculum rather than pedagogy. Curriculum is
much more visible, anonymous, explicit, codified and `political'
than pedagogy ± and hence more accessible, relevant and appar-
ently, quickly and politically acceptably, mutable.
i(ii) Associated with this is an underemphasis on learning. The field of
learning seems to have been almost entirely evacuated to the
psychologists. This seems to be a result of the selection principle
directing attention away from the theorization of the sociology of
teaching towards recording what teachers do.
(iii) An emphasis on economic success rather than other outcomes of
education.
ii(iv) An emphasis on access rather than outcomes. Again, the ready

manipulability of access is important here, as well as the greater
ease of, and immediate payoff to, theorising access than out-
comes.
iii(v) An emphasis on streaming rather than discipline. Streaming
obviously impinges more directly on the allocation of life
chances through education and on its immediate effects on
pupils' experience of schooling. Discipline, on the other hand,
does contain elements of criticism of teachers, has little res-
onance with either the redemptive or the progressive project,
and has been traditionally linked to a conservative political
stance.
ii(vi) At a different level a tendency to focus on policy rather than
politics (see also Dale, 1994).
i(vii) A matching tendency to focus on government rather than the
state. The greater visibility and accessibility again appear to be
major influences.
(viii) A greater stress on `liberation' than democracy as once again
something that it is apparently more feasible and recognizable
for education to bring about in the short term.
In terms of the theoretical and methodological approaches adopted
over the period, it could be argued that they followed and were shaped
by the main elements of the focus, where the effect of the dominant
purpose was most evident. In respect of the approaches used, then, the
selection principle worked on the one hand to narrow the range of what
was considered theoretically problematic and on the other to set the
level of theoretical abstraction at a level oriented to informed commentary
or political hostility rather than more extended conceptual analysis.
This may be seen to result in approaches whose parameters are
national, pragmatic, professional, problem-taking, solution-oriented,
ìntra-institutional', meliorist, `relevant' and immediate.
This period, then, saw major shifts in the sociology of education, from
what seemed the peak of its influence to divergence internally and
marginalization externally, that simultaneously increased the breadth
of its focus and narrowed the range and reduced the strength of its
approaches, to the point where its coherence was seriously threatened.
1985±97
The start of this period is taken as 1985, because it approximately marked
the beginning of the qualitative shifts in public sector management
in general and the most profound changes in education, in

particular brought about by the Thatcher and Major governments,
while the election of a Labour government in 1997 marks the beginning
of a self-consciously `new' period. Over this period the political context
dominated the nature of the location of sociology of education and
together they had major effects on the purpose of the sociology of
education. Indeed, the changes to the political context in particular
represented the first challenge in the whole period under review
to the dominance of the redemptive purpose of the sociology of
education. Three aspects of that context underlay that challenge to its
sustainability. First, the period witnessed an accelerating shift in political
priorities, that may be summed up as a shift from the notion that the
economy was to serve social policy to the opposite view. Second, the
means by which it had been assumed the project could be brought into
being, a policymaking social democratic state, had also been almost
totally eroded. And third, was the collapse of the eastern bloc. Though
the substance of the claims to an alternative route had never been
realized, the existence of a claim that a state-led redemptive strategy in
education was possible had, however implicitly, provided some support
for the redemptive project.
It is worth elaborating briefly on the second of these as it may be seen
as having had the most effect on the selection principle. (For further
elaboration, see Dale, 1999c and 1999d and Robertson 1999 and 2000.)
Its essence may be captured as a shift from a system of governing based
on `tax, spend, policy, consult' to `liberalise, monitor, regulate, juridify'.
Very briefly, the changes to public sector management over this period
brought about a heavy emphasis on accountability, the reduction of
influence of all partners in the education service outside the central
state, placing education on a quasi-market basis, reductions in, and
centralization of control over funding, and the introduction of control
by quango (the Teacher Training Agency was especially significant for
sociology of education). What these measures added up to was
effectively a replacement of policy by a regulatory framework, within
which the role of policy was restricted to repairing the holes in the
framework, accompanied by a general `de-democratization' of educa-
tion (see Dale, 1999a and b), thus eroding the mechanisms through
which it had been implicitly assumed change would be brought about.
The effect of this was not just to impose notably greater constraints
on the locations of sociology of education, but to remove almost all
bases outside the academy through which it could make its voice
heard.
The implications of this changed context on location were profound.

The TTA introduced much tighter and much more practice-based rules
for teacher education that reduced the amount of àcademic' input and
discretion considerably. Ofsted's audit regime also helped reduce the
scope for innovation and set tight and exclusive standards for the
processes of schooling. Outside teacher education, and at least as
important in its effects, the increasing importance of a research
based component to university funding put very great pressure on
sociologists of education to maximize their number of publications.
The pressure to publish did have some positive effects. It raised the
profile of academic approaches within the discipline and it did open
up new possibilities of support from within the institutions, though it
did also put sociologists of education into competition with each
other.
These changes in the context and location of the sociology of educa-
tion had evident effects on its purpose. Coming alongside the collapse
of the state socialist alternative, they represented the final confirmation
of the impossibility of a structural response to the problem of inequality,
which had been a central plank of the redemptive project. Where it was
maintained, the focus of that project turned in the direction of the
individual and identity, and to the possibilities of agency rather than
structure as the key to change. At the same time, the pressure to publish
was essentially indifferent to what was published, and this inevitably led
to moves outside the now somewhat discredited `traditional' purpose
for topics of research.
The effects on the focus and approaches of the discipline can be set
down very briefly. The changes to the selection principle did little to
turn back its increasing diversity and dissipation. But while the TTA's
control over teaching related research did narrow the range of possibi-
lities somewhat, the search for sources of research funding may have
restored the balance.
Conclusion
I have tried to do two things in this chapter. The first was to provide an
account of the changing focus and approaches of the sociology of
education that related them to a selection principle made up of
changing combinations of the discipline's purpose, location and
contexts. In doing that I have outlined a brief and necessarily partial
history of the sociology of education in England over the past half
century. The second, equally important, aim has been to understand
the conditions of theory production in the sociology of education and

in particular what makes it less productive and effective than it might be
(which has been a lament common to almost all sociologies of sociology
of education ± see, for example, Ball, 1998, Brehony and Deem, 1999,
Shilling, 1993). This does not imply either a relativism towards theory or
a commitment to theory for its own sake.
I have suggested that the discipline's focus has been shaped largely on
the basis of it taking for granted the existing framework of assumptions
within the education system; in particular, the purpose of the sociology
of education was tied to the possibilities of the education system as they
were known and understood. This entailed a substantial, if unacknow-
ledged, or unrecognized, narrowing of the possible scope of the sociol-
ogy of education, which might be seen as formed by four sets of
questions; `Who gets taught what, how, by whom, and under what
circumstances, conditions, contexts and resources?'; How, by whom
and through what structures, institutions and processes are these
matters defined, governed, organized and managed?'; What is the
relationship of education as a social institution to other social
institutions of the state, economy and civil society?; and Ìn whose
interests are these things determined and what are their social and
individual consequences?' And the limiting of the focus to issues that
fit with the existing frameworks of provision, practice and control has
affected not only what questions get asked, but how they are asked and
what counts as an acceptable answer.
I have suggested that the main theoretical and methodological
approaches have been not only directly influenced by the selection
principle but that the operation of that principle has meant that the
approaches have been shaped by the focus rather than vice versa and
that together these factors have contributed to a curbing and curtailing
of theoretical ambition. The nature of the approaches has been affected
in particular by the nature of the dominant purpose. That purpose has
been to bring about change in one key area of the social world. In
conjunction with the main institutional location of the discipline, in
teacher education, it formed a selection principle whose focus was
exclusively on that particular area of the social world; this focus largely
ignored other aspects of its wider context, whose significance was itself
interpreted through the prism of the dominant purpose. As I have
pointed out above, it also took as unproblematic the education system
as the means to attain the purpose. Here the influence of location was
crucial in linking together the confines of the focus with those of the
approaches.
It should, finally, be noted that these comments about the nature of

theoretical development in the sociology of education carry no implica-
tions about the quality and ability of its practitioners. Indeed, the very
suggestion that that might be the case is somewhat ironic, given that a
leading sociological theorist has argued that the sociology of education
represents the cutting edge of sociological theory (Collins, 1986).
However, the fact that this claim is based entirely on the contributions
of Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu adds to the argument presented
here, since it can be argued that the work of neither of these theorists
has been significantly influenced by the selection principle outlined
here. Few would doubt that Bernstein has been the outstanding theorist
in the sociology of education over the greater part of the period covered
here. It is also clear that his work is at some distance from that of most
that has been discussed here; indeed, it might be argued that it is the
differences between the assumptions of the selection principle and
those that inform his work that have underlain at least some part of
the misunderstandings and the difficulties with which that work has
often been received. However, it seems to me that Bernstein's work
differs from that influenced by the selection principle in the ways
described in this chapter along one crucial dimension in particular,
the relationship between the dominant purpose and the nature of the
theoretical approach.
In a nutshell, his work inverts that relationship, so that theory frames
focus rather than vice versa and, while he is very clearly sympathetic to
the redemptive purpose, he takes that not so much as requiring a
focus on educational practice but a different level of theoretical
abstraction that seeks understanding well beyond those immediate
conditions. It is difficult to exemplify this briefly, but the following
quotations from the introduction to a chapter, `Pedagogic Codes and
their Modalities of Practice' may help (Bernstein, 1996). In this
chapter he
make(s) a very deliberate choice to focus sharply upon the underlying

rules shaping the social construction of pedagogic discourse and its
various practices. I am doing this because it seems to me that
sociological theory is very long on metatheory and very short on
providing specific principles of description. I shall be concentrating
very much on being able to provide and create models, which can
generate specific descriptions. It is my belief that, without these
specific descriptions, there is no way in which we can understand
the way in which knowledge systems become part of consciousness
and he summarizes the problems with which he will be concerned as
how does power and control translate into principles of communica-

tion, and how do these principles of communication differentially
regulate forms of consciousness with respect to their reproduction
and the possibilities of change? (ibid, 17, 18).
There is of course no suggestion that inverting the relationship between

theory and purpose necessarily leads in the directions that Bernstein has
followed; but though it is obviously not a sufficient condition of pro-
ductive theory, the argument of this paper suggests that it may well be a
necessary one.
In conclusion, if we ask how the arguments outlined here might assist
theory production in the sociology of education, the brief answer would
be that what is required is a realignment of the relationship between
purpose and theory of the kind just sketched out. One reason for this is
that the purpose component of the selection principle is much more
negotiable than either the location or the context; not only that, but it is
the medium through which the meaning of context is understood. That
is why the crucial relationship is that between purpose, focus and
approaches. As long as the purpose is perceived as being most success-
fully achieved through changing the focus of the discipline, theoretical
production will be under threat. Only when it is realized that purpose is
attainable only through changing approaches as well as, and prior to,
changing focus, will the conditions be such as to allow theoretical
production in the sociology of education to flourish.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the following friends and colleagues for their
generous and very helpful comments on an earlier version of this
chapter; Basil Bernstein, Andy Green, Tony Green, Maeve Landman,
David Livingstone, Rob Moore, Terri Seddon, Geoff Whitty, Michael
Young and Lynn Yates. I would also like to thank Sara Delamont and
Paul Atkinson, and Kevin Brehony and Rosemary Deem for allowing me
to see their unpublished papers on the sociology of sociology of
education. Finally, I must thank Susan Robertson both for her
contributions to this discussion and for allowing me to draw on her
extensive study of teachers' work (Robertson, 2000). None of these
people will agree with everything that I have written here, but they have
all helped to make the chapter better than it might otherwise have been.
2
Feminist Sociology of Education:
Dynamics, Debates and Directions
Jo-Anne Dillabough and Madeleine Arnot
Feminist sociology of education is one of the richest veins within the

discipline today. Although its specific contribution is the analysis of
gender relations in education, it has added substantially to an under-
standing of the broader relationship between education and society.
Within the feminist project, history, structure and biography join
hands in imaginative theoretical and empirical ways. Bearing many of
the hallmarks of the postwar social democratic period in which the
women's movement gathered pace, feminist sociology of education has
engaged vigorously and with some success in the analysis of, for example:
educational inequality and social stratification; the hierarchies of
knowledge and the arbitrary values underlying the curriculum; and the
role of the state, economy and the family in modern education systems.
At the same time it manifests many of the illusions and disillusionments
of the era ± recognizing, for example, the forms of economic and social
determination which are pitted against the goals of personal or collective
liberation. What characterizes the development of feminism as a major
political force in the postwar period in the United Kingdom and there-
fore what accounts for its impact on the educational system and aca-
demic research (especially in relation to women's education) has been its
flexibility. It has kept up and adapted its academic agenda to engage
critically with social democratic ideals as well as with neo-liberal and
neo-conservative reform programmes (Arnot et al., 1999). With its strong
tradition of policy analysis and research, feminist sociologists have used
their own yardstick of social justice to question and challenge the imple-
mentation of government programmes in relation to male and female
patterns of education, and the gendered premises of the liberal demo-
cratic project (see Arnot and Dillabough, 1999). The record of feminist
sociology of education, therefore, is a particularly strong one.
30
Feminist Sociology of Education 31
The fundamental presupposition of feminist sociology of education is

that gender is a social category, hence a social construction. Ann Oakley
(l972), an anthropologist, argued that if gender (rather than sex) could
be used as a theoretical construct, then it could be applied to the study
of socialization and society. The concept of `gender' therefore became
analytically, as well as politically, preferable to the concept of `sex' (that
is, biological distinctions between men and women) in sociological
studies of education. Through the critical application of the social cate-
gory of gender to the study of education, gender patterns in schooling
were linked to broader social inequalities. For example, in 1978 Eileen
Byrne and Rosemary Deem separately documented the myriad ways in
which sexual discrimination was entrenched in the UK education sys-
tem, while Dale Spender's (1980, 1982 and 1987) polemical accounts of
the `patriarchal paradigm of education' added new political concepts
such as girls' òppression', `female exploitation', and `male domination'
to the study of schooling. The outcome of this work was a body of
scholarship now commonly identified as the `sociology of women's
education' (Arnot, 1985).
By the 1980s, liberal feminism had become part of mainstream socio-
logy of education (Arnot l982), bringing with it an emphasis on individual
socialization and educational outcomes which had derived from, on the
one hand, Parsonian structural functionalism and, on the other, from the
empirical and indeed rationalistic assumptions of the natural sciences in
relation to causal relationships. Paradoxically this tradition, when
applied to gender, had a radical politics in terms of access, while at the
same time leaving unchallenged the roots of liberalism in male epistemo-
logies of knowledge. Drawing largely upon the Èuropean structuralist
tradition' (Sadovnik, 1995), critical feminist sociologists challenged such
micro-level academic thinking about gender inequalities by arguing for a
broader and more politically driven conceptual frame through which to
examine the manifestation of gender politics in educational environ-
ments (for example Barrett, 1980; David, 1980; Deem, 1980). They drew
upon Durkheimian concepts of the moral order and Marxist concerns
with conflict, consciousness and social change. Fundamental to this
analysis was the understanding of gender as a historically and culturally
specific category that forms part of the economic and material, social
(sexual) division of labour. The gender order thus described was clearly
linked to theories of social order and to the mainstream (and often male
centred) theoretical and empirical concerns in the sociology of education.
Early feminist interventions in the sociology of education attempted
to establish a new critical, but also liberatory, agenda for education. This
attempt was launched more often than not from a position of margin-
ality or low status in the discipline (Acker, 1981). However, because
feminist sociologists addressed the problems that women were con-
fronting daily as `lived experience' in many educational contexts,
whether as teachers or pupils, a strong dialectical relationship existed
between their work and educational policy (Arnot et al., l999). Nowhere
in feminist studies has the principle that feminism is not ònly about
women, but for women', been more directly relevant.
In the early stages of the application of feminist theory to education,
the charting of feminist perspectives seemed to many, at least on the
face of it, to be relatively straightforward. (see Arnot, 1981: Connell,
1987; Middleton, 1987; Stone, l994). Such heuristic simplicity, however,
was soon criticized for failing to capture the range of different and
conflicting approaches or to improve women's social positioning more
generally (for example, Brah and Minhas, 1985; Ellsworth, 1989, 1998;
Middleton, 1993). Many also argued that postwar versions of feminist
academic research were entrenched in middle-class values and did not
speak for (or about) women on the margins (for example, working-class
and culturally oppressed women). In response, feminist debates moved
beyond their traditional origins in Marxism and liberalism. Today, there
are numerous `feminism(s) in education' (Weiner, 1994) and theories
of gender politics. Many of these `new' positions derive from the
expression of political, cultural and sexual identities in both society
and the academy, and interdisciplinary and post-structural theoretical
work in the social sciences. In contrast to second wave theorizing, these
`new' forms, which are often associated with late modernity, tend to
emphasize change and fluidity (for example, shifting and performative
notions of gender) over that of gender continuities and the stability
of the gender order. The current research traditions within `feminist'
sociology of education thus are even harder to `capture', drawing as
they do upon divergent, yet sometimes overlapping, theoretical
and empirical approaches to the study of gender and feminism in
education.
Despite such difficulties, we believe that in order to understand the
nature of current feminist sociological analyses of education, it is
necessary to engage with the field as a whole rather than with particular
examples of research. It is, therefore, still worth attempting to chart a
rather informal (albeit retrospective) history of diverse feminist
theoretical perspectives. We shall show that many of the key questions
raised by early feminist studies, rather than being rejected, are still
being addressed by feminist sociologists of education today.
A conceptual framework
Connell (l987), in Gender and Power, argues that positions on gender are
more easily understood when examined in relation to broad epistemo-
logical, political and social questions. We have found Connell's distinc-
tion between intrinsic and extrinsic theories particularly useful in
charting the trajectory of feminist sociology in education. Intrinsic
theories are those which attempt to explain how strong conceptual
and stable notions of gender (rather than shifting notions of gender)
in society come into being. Such theoretical formulations are based
largely on a kind of instrumental thinking which tends to focus on
questions that concern ìndividuals' and issues that are typically
thought to be intrinsic to them (for example, self-esteem, sex differ-
ences). Extrinsic theories, on the other hand, tend to focus on the social
and/or class-based nature of power relations in the polity. State struc-
tures, relations of production and the gendered nature of the public
sphere all figure in the manner in which gender is understood in educa-
tion from an extrinsic perspective.
In our view, both theoretical stances reside within what we identify as
a rationalistic framework since they have either explained women's
oppression on the basis of the authority of reason or on a corresponding
theory of rationalism which ultimately reaffirms the gender binary (that
is, male power over women) in educational thought. Rationalistic
approaches either charted linear relationships between, on the one
hand, individual behaviours (for example, gender roles, female charac-
teristics) and women's oppression or, on the other hand, female margin-
ality and what were often described as `rationally' organized and
deliberately controlled social structures (for example, state or the market).
Such theories stand in contrast to those which are relational (see Luke,
1989). These theoretical positions are most commonly, but not exclu-
sively, accorded the terms postmodern or post-structural, yet they are
not theories in the traditional sense. Rather, they are conceptual frame-
works which serve to break down theoretical foundations and map a
particular set of power relations which lead to `local' understandings of
gender in education. They also attempt to capture the fluid nature of
gender as a temporality which is embedded in the power of language
rather than merely charting universal laws about women's experience in
the broadest sense.
These theoretical distinctions are discussed in the following sections.
Below we attempt to capture both the diversity and creative tensions in
the field as it developed, demonstrating that the central questions raised
by feminism are still not only central to the development of sociology of

education but also that the issues raised are still being returned to again
and again, thus reflecting the continuity within the field.
Rationalistic theorizing: ìntrinsic' and extrinsic approaches
Liberal feminism
The historical roots of liberal feminism are well documented. Mary
Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (first published
1792) set the tone when she argued that women, like men, are capable
of reason and thus possess the right to be educated to their full capacities
in similar, if not identical, forms of schooling. This notion of equal
education formed the foundation of a liberal feminist philosophy of
education including a vision of women as `rational' beings (that is,
honorable women) ± hence educable ± and a vision of society as equal,
and as democratic (for a fuller description of this perspective, see Arnot
and Dillabough, l999).
Since the l970s, respect for women's rights in a free and open educa-
tional system, individual autonomy, opportunity and choice in
education, and gender equality (rather than political equality) in
schools have been regarded as core female entitlements which can be
achieved through female participation in various procedural forms of
competition in an open school environment. The long-term goal of
feminism here was to èmpower' women to take up their rightful place
through the development of female autonomy. The key issue was the
support of freedom, whether in relation to play, or subject and occupa-
tional choice; that is, the removal of barriers (such as discrimination or
prejudice) as an individual right in a democratic society. Examples of
sociological research which formed part of the liberal feminist impera-
tive include, for example, the study of sex roles (Delamont, 1980) and
sex differences (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974), the relationship between
teachers' expectations and girls' occupational choice, and the study of
girls' self-esteem, and gender subject preferences (for example: Kelly,
1981). Noteworthy is that much of this research is still premised upon
a male-centred rationality drawing upon, for example, formal quantita-
tive methods such as self-esteem scales, student response checklists and
questionnaires as tools for identifing gender inequality. Indeed many of
these early conceptions have been adopted somewhat uncritically in
much of the new literature on boys' underachievement (see Epstein et
al., 1998 for a discussion of this emerging perspective) ignoring the fact
that feminist sociological research in this tradition has evolved with the
passage of time, and that by the early 1990s, far more attention was
being given to the particularity of context and the manner in which it
shapes male and female identities and students' responses to their
socialization (see Measor and Sikes, l992). While much of this feminist
work continues to endorse a focus on the modern liberal subject (rather
than a feminist collective), it has exposed the many barriers to
educational access for women and men in liberal democracies (Arnot
and Dillabough, l999 for a fuller discussion).
The critiques of such intrinsic theorizing set a new agenda for socio-
logists. They pointed to the failure to recognize feminism (rather than
conventional gender attitudes shaping identity) as a social/political
movement in its own right, and to understand the significance of com-
munity in the shaping of society. The gendered nature of hierarchical
structures in schools tended to remain unexplored and society's role in
the development of gender identities, relations and politics was substan-
tially underestimated. For example, the political and economic struc-
tures and forms of power which constrain women's social and political
agency in education, in the family and in the state remained uncharted
territory. More significantly, little had been learned about the ways in
which the opportunity structures in education suppress, for example,
minority ethnic women and girls. Consequently, under liberal femin-
ism, the significance of both identity-politics and difference was lost.
Feminist critiques of liberal theory (for example, Whelahan, 1995)
also encouraged the development of a cluster of critical sociological
theories of gender in education which explored concepts of state
power and class relations as central to women's oppression in education.
What varies among these perspectives, however, is the manner in which
power is defined. Connell (1987) describes extrinsic theories as those
which focus primarily on the following: (i) abstract forms of state power;
(ii) collective notions of power as expressed in symbolic forms of the
civil society (for example, Durkheimian/Marxist perspectives); or (iii)
power which is thought to reside outside a women's control. Below we
briefly distinguish between two seminal feminist traditions in the
sociology of education which could be described as extrinsic: radical;
maternal; and, socialist feminism.
Radical and maternal feminisms

Broadly speaking, radical feminist theorizing tried to address the prob-
lems represented by liberal feminism ± that is, `merely adding' women
to a schooling agenda which was founded upon a historical trajectory
of masculine thought. Drawing heavily upon the politics of popular

feminism and feminist social movements in the 1970s and early
1980s, the goal of radical feminism was to expose the various forms of
male domination in education. The `conceptual device' drawn upon to
challenge such male domination was `patriarchy'. As Kate Millet (1977)
maintains, patriarchal ideology resided at the very core of the state,
amplifying the traditional divisions between the public (rationality,
work, male centred) and private sphere (domesticity, nature, female-
centered). A central concern, therefore, was to develop an understand-
ing of the relationship between patriarchy and female sexuality and
their complementary links to the subordination of women. Con-
sequently, radical feminists addressed issues which sociologists tradi-
tionally had veered away from such as the study of symbolic forms of
male power in school curriculum, texts and school subjects (Spender,
1980, 1987), the sexualized and gendered language of youth in schools
(Lees, 1986), and the sexual dominance of boys in classrooms (Mahony,
1983, 1985). At the same time, radical feminists encouraged women to
embrace the notion of liberation through a collective critique of male
domination in education (Thompson, 1983). They emphasized the ways
in which their voices were suppressed and women's knowledge de-
valued. On this basis, they constructed a politically functional category
known as `girl' with the implication that `girls' in a real sense must rely
upon radical politics within the feminist movement for their liberation.
Another strand of radical feminism known as maternal feminism (cf.,
Dietz, 1985) had a greater impact on education in America. The mater-
nal feminist approach, influenced as it was by philosophy of education
(for example, Roland Martin, 1982) was preoccupied with values (for
example, caring) which were thought to be central to the mother±child
bond. Thus while radical feminists argued for the elimination of con-
ventionally conceived `feminine values', maternal feminists argued for
their celebration in public life (see Tong, 1989). This approach has been
linked closely to the work of social psychologists and moral philo-
sophers who have a particular interest in women and girls' develop-
ment, particularly that of Chodorow (1979) and Gilligan (1982). Key
to their versions of feminism is the importance of èmpowering' women
in schools, drawing upon their personal knowledge and collective `fem-
inine' norms (for example, the ethics of care; connectedness) in creating
a female-centered morality in the state (see Lyons, 1990; Noddings,
1988; Roland Martin, 1982). Therefore, the process of inclusion in edu-
cation was understood not to be individual but to be collective, using
`women's ways of knowing' (Belenky et al. 1986) as the means by which
such liberation could be encouraged. In this feminist model the category

women not only remains intact, but is celebrated for its anti-elitist and less
hierarchical forms of moral authority (for example, mother±child bond)
(see Arnot and Dillabough, 1999 for a fuller discussion).
Radical feminist and maternal feminists had their critics. Early on,
Wolpe (1988) took exception to the essentialism implied in the term
patriarchy (that is, all men oppress ± all women suffer), arguing that the
formal categories of `male' and `female' merely reaffirmed crude gender
divisions with little reference to the social complexity underlying the
formation of ideas about `masculinity' and `femininity' in schools and
the state. Both patriarchal relations and the concept of gender thus
appeared as unchanging, decontextualized and ahistorical. Contradic-
tions also emerged when examining the theoretical links between the
sociological stance taken within radical feminism (that is, social
constructivism) and the political line taken on issues surrounding
male domination in schools (that is, the notion that all men dominate).
Qualitative sociological research demonstrated that gender was a
dynamic social construct which is reconstituted over time and space,
and was shaped by complex social forces which cannot be solely
restricted to male domination (see Connell, 1987;Walkerdine,1990).
Similarly while there can be little doubt that a concern with `caring'
should be central to education, problems were identified with the
maternalist feminist approach. For example, the presumption that
replacing male culture (in schools) with female culture will lead
ultimately to a more just society is problematic largely in terms of its
reproductive dimensions (that is, notion that all women are caregivers).
Indeed, such a replacement strategy rarefies women's experience over
that of men's ± a strategy which does not do justice to women's diverse
and complex views about gender and the elements of female identity
(Dietz, 1985). There is also still concern about the erasure of alternative
forms of gender identity, the misrepresentation of the constitutive
experiences of the differently positioned women, and the failure to
address the nuanced and contradictory ways that gender politics have
challenged traditional thinking about the polity and women's values.
These failures have led to concerns that a maternal feminist analysis
only examines gender differences rather than social, cultural and ethnic
differences within gender categories.
Socialist feminism
Differences within gender categories could also only be partially addressed
by socialist feminists who attempted to reconcile theories of class and
gender relations. Arguably, s ocialist feminists had an impact on

sociology of education (Arnot and Dillabough, l999) because they
offered a feminist critique of liberal democratic theories (including
their role in the shaping of educational institutions) which ran parallel
to mainstream political economy of education. They recognized that in
order to understand the social significance and impact of education,
they would need to recognize the importance of the economic sphere
and its effects on the institutional culture and structure of schooling.
This led to an understanding of education as the site for the preparation
(and reproduction) of a hierarchically stratified gendered work force,
with women being prepared for lower status or marginalized positions
in the `secondary labour market' or the `reserve army of labour'. The
emphasis on the reproduction of the social and economic order led to a
feminist version of social reproduction theory (MacDonald, 1980).
Informed primarily by Bowles and Gintis (1976), feminist sociologists
conceptualized education as an instrument of capitalism which
reproduced the subordination of women, and in particular, the
subordination of working-class girls (see Acker, 1989; Anyon, 1983).
Social class, therefore, appeared with great regularity as the social
formation which not only pre-figured, but determined, girls'
educational experiences, identities and forms of consciousness. In this
early version of gender reproduction theory, the study of school
structures and their links to the economy was privileged over a notion
of human agency as an explanatory theory of gender inequality.
Later versions of socialist feminism drew upon theories of class hege-
mony (Gramsci, 1971), cultural capital (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977)
and educational codes (Bernstein, 1977) which were used to describe and
explain conflicts and contradictions in school life, and between school,
culture and the economy. The structure of gender relations in schools
(`gender codes' (Arnot, 1982) or `gender regimes' (Connell, 1987)) was
understood as constituting and thus reproducing particular versions of
masculinity, femininity and family life (Gaskell, 1983), the dominant
versions of which were associated with the upper middle classes. Such
analyses focused attention on the simultaneous production of gendered
and classed subjects and their contingent cultures of resistance (c.f.,
Anyon, 1983 on private/public accommodation and resistance). Of par-
ticular significance was the attention such analyses drew to the role of
masculinity and femininity in shaping class relations: often disaffection
in school was expressed as a celebration of particular masculinities
(Willis, 1977) or a `cult of femininity' (McRobbie, 1978). However, as
we have argued elsewhere (Arnot and Dillabough, l999), despite its
ability to inspire what is now a 30-year debate about difference in educa-

tion, socialist feminism tended to deny the significance of women's
political agency and indeed of intra-class differences (such as ethnic
and sexual identities). Although linking racial inequalities to capitalism
and imperialism, the experiences of black women and girls in the educa-
tional system tended to be understood as deviations from the white
working-class norms (Mirza, 1992). The primary focus of socialist femi-
nism on the ideological nature of women's work in the public sphere and
the political economy of girls' education was also weakened by a failure
to understand the role of women's labour within the family, and within
the educational system (David, West and Ribbens (1994); Dillabough,
1999). Such models of analysis were fundamentally constraining.
Rationalistic explanations of gender inequality and women's oppres-
sion were, therefore, challenged on a number of fronts, not least for the
essentialism of their analysis of `women' as a category, their somewhat
behaviouristic models of socialization and identity formation and the
failure to recognize and/or to account for cultural diversity and cultural
oppression. At the same time, the parent discipline of sociology of educa-
tion with its history of `founding fathers' seemed to find such feminist
research threatening. The analysis of gender relations was either treated
as peripheral and hence diversionary, or as divisive. Despite feminists'
early reliance on mainstream theory, critical male sociologists of educa-
tion have been remarkably reluctant to assimilate feminist theoretical
work perhaps on the grounds that they had over-emphasized the primacy
of social class relations over and above other forms of social identification
and the primacy of the economy over private, the domestic and familial
relations (MacDonald, 1980; David, 1993) Yet despite such ambivalence,
modernist explanations offered by feminist sociologists in the early
1980s raised key issues that were deeply relevant to men and women of
all social classes. The analysis of the processes of identity formation, of
the limits and possibilities of creating social change through educational
reform (in which many feminist academics were engaged) and of the role
of the state in regulating gender and social relations was to become
central to the discipline in the next decade. Difference therefore emerged
as central to feminist theories of education.
Relational epistemologies and the question of `gender' in

education
In some ways, the `fragmentation' of the feminist movement in the

early 1980s helped rather than hindered the development of feminist
sociology of education, since it created the possibilities of working with

other disciplinary traditions. The rising importance of black feminism,
feminist social psychology and cultural studies, as we shall see, all
enriched feminist sociology of education by introducing different
`knowledge claims' about gender relations into the study of gender
and education. Modernist explanatory frameworks were increasingly
challenged for their use of theoretical perspectives which were framed
by and for men ± what feminist postmodernists such as Lather (l991)
described as the `master narratives' of modernity.
Black feminists, in particular, took exception to the constraints of
such rationalistic theorizing in education (Carby, 1982; Davis, 1983;
hooks, 1989; Mirza, 1993) For example, much of the new sociological
work analyzed the relationship of black families (Phoenix, 1987) and
black women to capitalism and imperialism (Hill-Collins, 1990), and set
an agenda for the study of black women's experience and gendered
discourses of racism in schools (see, for example, Blair, l995; Blair and
Holland, 1995). The power and dominance of feminist sociological
discourses on gender and education were thus exposed as Eurocentric,
ethnocentric and colonialist in both form and content (Mirza, 1992).
Black women were understood to inhabit òther worlds'; their experi-
ences of education and, indeed, of political struggle, were fundament-
ally structured around what Mirza and Reay (2000) recently described as
the `third space' ± that of the community. Individual social mobility in
this context was framed by a `desire for inclusion that is strategic,
subversive and ultimately far more transformative than subcultural
reproduction suggests'.
Black women's political agency bears a fundamentally different rela-
tionship to structure than that accounted for in rationalistic models (see
Brah and Minhas, 1985). Hence, black feminist sociologists ignited an
interest in postcolonial accounts which were more relational in
approach (Mirza, 1997). By the late 1980s, similar theoretical separa-
tions were made between mainstream feminist theorizing and, for
example, lesbian, gay and transgendered feminism(s) (see for
example, Epstein and Johnston, 1998). The variety of contemporary
feminism(s), many of which now reside somewhat ambiguously in the
postmodern or post-structural camp, to some extent represented the
expression of emerging identity politics within the discipline. We
focus next on one of the most important aspects of these new
feminisms ± the discursive shift to post-structuralism as an explanatory
framework which could work with notions of culture, language and
difference.
Post-structural feminism
Post-structural theorizing within education is now a vast terrain and
laying out its distinctions within feminist theory is beyond the scope of
this chapter. However, it should be said that what sets post-structuralism
apart from rational forms of structuralism is its self-conscious and delib-
erate reflexivity, its link to deconstruction as political action, and its
emphasis on the study of relational forms of power (often represented as
a temporal manifestation of power in language) in education. Over the
last 15 years, many post-structural feminists (for example, Davies, 1989;
Ellsworth, 1989; Kenway, 1995 Walkerdine, 1990) have argued that
social theorists should develop an anti-foundationalist approach to
education in which false dichotomies (such as girls' versus boys'
experience) should be understood as regulatory linguistic devices
which concretize human experience and make them, therefore, difficult
to contest. By contrast however, if gendered educational relations and
experiences are read as complex representations of `culture' and if men
and women's lives could be read as `text' (interpreted in diverse ways)
then it is possible to de-stabilize the category `woman' (Butler, 1990).
This was a `first' principle of feminist post-structural thinking.
The key terms drawn upon by post-structural feminists of ìdentity',
`difference', `deconstruction', `performativity', `discourse' and `subject-
ivity' (cf., Scott, 1994) provide the conceptual tools for capturing the
performative nature of gender and exposing the many gendered `subject
positions' within education and society. Broadly speaking, then, the
theoretical task of a relational approach is to research schooling as a
gendered process (rather than social institution), shaping and reconsti-
tuting identities in relation to time, place and space.
Foucault's analysis of modern society has had, and continues to have,
particular relevance to such relational feminist theories. This is largely
due to the seminal theoretical work of, for example, Valerie Walkerdine
(1987, 1990) and Bronwyn Davies (l989) who applied a Foucauldian
analysis to the study of infant and primary classrooms and pupils. In
their analyses, classroom interactions (whether between teacher and
pupil, or between pupil and text) are interpreted as regulating various
social identities, only one of which is gender identity. Such regulatory
mechanisms are configured discursively and subjectively, and are shown
for example, to condition the everyday lives and understandings of
teachers, pupils, staff and parents. The challenge for feminist post-struc-
turalists is therefore to identify how such ìdentities' are generated and
regulated as `truths' in schools, and how these regulative functions lead
in turn to the reconstitution of gender hierarchies in schools and

society. The strength of post-structural feminist accounts can be found
in their analysis of the power of knowledge and language in shaping
pupils' (teachers') multiple subjectivities (see Davies, 1989; Kenway,
1995) and, for example, the regulation of female bodies (Middleton,
1993, 1998). These accounts have demonstrated how such discourses
are read and reproduced in the curriculum, and by pupils and teachers.
In short, post-structural feminism challenged the simplicity of early
reproduction theories and the totalizing effect of the capitalist±patriar-
chy relation.
More recent post-structural feminist theorizing has posed questions
about the role of marketization, educational reform and what is now
termed the `new managerialism' in reconfiguring gender politics in
diverse educational contexts (see Acker, 1994; Blackmore, 1996; Delhi,
1996; Kenway and Epstein, 1996). There is also increasing concern for
the ways in which macro, cross-national global discourses shape ques-
tions about gender at a local, or indeed, micro-level of educational
discourse (Blackmore, 1999; Brine, 1999; Kenway and Langmead,
2000). There has also been substantially more work on the role of
parents in either challenging or reproducing gender hierarchies,
through parental involvement in school choices and other related acti-
vities. For example, David, West and Ribben's (1994) work on mothers
and school choice and Ball and Gerwirtz's (1997) study of parents'
representations of single-sex girl schools points to the gendered nature
of school choice and the reproduction, at least in part, of the traditional
ideals and expectations attached to labels such as `femininity' and
`motherhood' in schools. Some of this work is more of a critique of
market theory than a commitment to post-structural influences.
However, despite advances made by feminist post-structuralists and
post-structuralism more generally, there are remaining conceptual
dilemmas. For example, many critics of feminist post-structuralism
argue that in focusing almost entirely on the study of women's subject-
ivities, the feminist project and the notion of women as a political, yet
heterogeneous, collective may have been collapsed into the realm of the
unknown (see Young, 1995). After all, most research on gender equality
in schools has identified `girls' as the issue, their experience as the
`problem' and their needs as the purpose of educational reform. Educa-
tional critics of post-structuralism have, therefore, tended to argue that
it is more difficult to understand, within such analyses, how feminist
post-structuralism and other relational theories can address the `real'
problems of gender inequity in schools (see Kenway, 1996). What still
remains problematic may be the desire by relational theorists to take the

study of gendered subjectivities to an extreme, with less room for a more
rigorous analysis of the role of the neo-liberal state and social change in
women's lives. Nor indeed is it easy to see how other material realities
(such as familial poverty) frame the discursive effects of schooling. As a
consequence, the search for a necessary `truth' about women's
oppression can become all too provisional.
Another element of relational feminism still emphasized in feminist
sociology is the importance of analyzing women's lived experience as a
valid epistemological position. Such experiences are thought to
represent a female standpoint, yet they should not necessarily be seen
as shared experiential terrain. A good deal of this work bears the
historical marks of modernism while still maintaining some semblance
of postmodern thinking. In fact, some of these theoretical viewpoints
have been quite explicit in their commitment to a particular strand of
modernist feminist thinking, while venturing, ever so gently, into
postmodern or Foucauldian terrain. As such, many of these new
theoretical frames are not an abrupt break with the past but instead
represent a kind of feminist dialectic which lead to the formal and
informal synthesizing of new theoretical forms.
One such feminism in education is the brand of feminist materialism
which has been articulated by a range of cultural theorists, especially
those concerned with the impact of social change on youth. For ex-
ample, Leslie Roman (1992) argues that knowledge about gender must
be viewed as a dialectical construction which emerges as a consequence
of the dynamic relation between women's subjectivity (that is, stand-
point) and the particularity of women's material relations/conditions in
society. Her interest in women's `standpoint' reflects a concern with
subjectivity as expressed through, for example, the discourse of
youth cultures and the everyday experience of young women (see
Roman, 1993). Related accounts point to the significance of subjectivity
and women's standpoint as fundamental to a women-centered episte-
mology have also emerged. For example, the work of Foster (1993) and
Luttrell (1997) draws upon women's discourse, everyday accounts and
stories as epistemic tools for understanding how gender and social
change are constructed in relation to educational practice. Much of
this work draws on the voices (autobiographies, oral histories, narrative
accounts) of women in education, or expressed by women about educa-
tion). It has a distinctively `relational' flavour, but like the work of
Roman, it remains connected to the material conditions of women's
lives.
Critical modernization theory
Feminist youth cultural studies have also focused upon the transforma-
tion and restructuring of gender relations in late modernity and its
effects on young people today. Empirical research on young women's
(and to a less extent young men's) identities engages with feminism in
the historical sense. In these analyses, feminism itself becomes one of a
range of contemporary discourses which defines and positions women
and men in new sets of social expectations and in periods of social
change. The goal of such work is to offer a finely detailed description
of how young people negotiate and construct their various identities
across diverse social contexts, such as new regimes of poverty, new
family structures, new economic structures and demands, and school
markets. The construction of new `gender knowledge' itself can be an
important element in the the shaping of gender identities. Epstein et al.
(l998), for example, consider the discursive framing of the boys' educa-
tion debate (the new moral panic about male underahcievement) in the
media and government circles as one element in this process of regula-
tion.
Feminist sociological studies of youth such as those conducted by
Weis (l990), Bates (1993a and b), Chisholm and Du Bois Reymond
(1993), Sharpe (1994), McLaren (1996), Skeggs (1997) and Volman and
ten Dam (l998), among others, provide a wealth of information about
the ways in which women's and girls' lives have been shaped by the
forces of social change associated with late modernity. We have chosen
to call this recent feminist research critical modernization theory since it
addresses in a critical way current sociological theories of moderniza-
tion. When analyzing the important transitions between education and
the labour market, such youth researchers draw upon Beck's (1992)
analysis of the nature of `the risk society' and the pressures it places on
individuals to engage in a process of `reflexive individualization' when
planning their lives. Beck has suggested that the forces of late modernity
encourage youth to see the world as apolitical and the idea of solidarity
as less significant. Rational modernizing forces, therefore, encourage
youth to place themselves at the centre of their success, thereby choos-
ing a life plan not on the basis of social meaning or virtue but on the
premises of an instrumental notion of individual progress. According to
Beck, what this means is that youth are able to detach themselves, to
some extent, from traditional understandings of male and female. How-
ever, according to Beck, equality is not the likely outcome. He predicts
instead that the differential impact on modernizing forces (rationality,
self progress, risk) will lead to an increasingly divergent and unequal

social order and `people's awareness of inequality [will become] more
conscious and less legitimated' (p.104). Such arguments already find
support in the work of Volman and ten Dam (l998) who discovered in
their study of 12±17-year-olds in the UK that `the legitimacy of differ-
ence between gender groups that implies inequality is under pressure',
but paradoxically èquality, the sense of sameness' for boys and girls is
also ùnthinkable'.
Sociologists, in general, have much to learn from the ways in which
such new feminist research addresses the more traditional relationship
between structure, agency and identity. What emerges from their highly
sophisticated accounts of young people's transitions are the gendered
processes of what Roberts et al. (1994, p.49) called `structured individua-
lization' whereby the processes of individualization (associated both
with post-Fordism and the `risk society') are mediated by the continuing
effects of social reproduction (especially the reproduction of social class
inequalities). Women's responses to such material and discursive com-
plexity, as Skeggs (1997) argued, are àlways historically located, the
product of positioning and partiality' (p.140). Women interpret global
issues at a local level. Thus,
their knowledge is produced from the unequal material relations in

which they are inscribed. It is produced from the interpretations they
make of their experience in relation to the frameworks which are
available to them. Their positions inform their responses to feminism
(p.140).
New feminist analyses of young women's lives point to the signifi-

cance of the social transformations of female youth culture. In contrast
there are few sociological accounts of male youth which capture empir-
ically the complex discursive positionings and processes of identity
formation of male youth. The work of, for example, Connell (l987,
1995), Mac an Ghaill (l994, 1996), Sewell (1997), Gilbert and Gilbert
(1998), Kenway, Willis, Blackmore and Rennie (1998), Power et al.
(1998), and Wright et al (l998) are exceptional attempts to interpret
the difficult mediations of masculinity as a cultural identity in contem-
porary society.
Recognition of the general significance of gender research is only
gradually being offered by mainstream sociology of education. When
reviewing Hey's (1997) book The Company She Keeps, Mac an Ghail (l998)
praized ethnographic work on girls' lives in schools for the ways in
which it had successfully documented the effects of the struggle over

identity politics and the politics of cultural difference since the 1980s.
Such in-depth studies of girls' lives, he argued, successfuly integrated the
analysis of political movements, social/economic change and individual
identities. Yet despite such praise, many critical sociological analyses of
the effects of post-Fordism on education fail to refer to relevant gender
(or indeed race) research. As Carter (l997) argues, post-Fordist analysis
failed to recognize that its own framework was built upon particular
racialized and gendered patterns, and a particular linkage between pub-
lic and private worlds. Consequently, he argues that contemporary
sociological studies, which fail to incorporate the analysis of what he
called `non-class social divisions' into their analysis, run with àn overly
simplified and homogenized view of the social world' (p.50). This
ommission blunts their `theoretical integrity' and their àpplicatory
edge'. They are therefore ìll-placed and theoretically unarmed to
explore important recent trends'.
Current research on the role of education in the lives of women offers
rich data on the interface between material structures, identities and
agency. Work is now focusing, on the one hand upon the relationship
between government-led educational reforms and the processes of gen-
der identification (see, for example, Dawtrey et al., 1995; Epstein et al.,
l998; Weiner et al., 1998), or, on the other hand, on the consequences of
gender change on the patterns of educational performance (for example
Moore 1996; Arnot et al., 1998, 1999). The integration within new
feminist theories, of economic and political structures and the discur-
sive formations of individual and collective identities is already being
successfully achieved. It is to be hoped that the consequences of such
theoretical endeavours and specific educational policies both for
women and men will in the future be brought into mainstream
sociological discussions (cf., Power et al., 1998; David, 1993).
Future considerations
What sociological history or narrative, if any, can be claimed in this

account of feminist theories of education? Perhaps this exercise in theo-
retical narration has demonstrated that feminist theories cannot be
understood merely on the basis of their institutional representation in
sociology, or the functions they assume in education. Instead, this work
must be seen historically as a diverse expression of perspectives that
concern who or what may be responsible for women's oppression and
how this took shape in education. It must also be seen as evidence of the
strength and diversity of the feminist education project and its ability to
struggle with `history, structure and biography' within the educational
sphere.
What then is the future of a feminist sociology of education? The
emerging critical tradition of research on the processes of moderniza-
tion, described above, demonstrates the potential for mapping social
change and its gendered manifestations in contemporary educational
institutions. It also gives us a purchase on the ways in which social
change impinges on gender identities and consequent gender relations
between male and female youth. Such attempts to grapple again with
the relationship between structure and agency from a gender perspec-
tive could lead to a greater understanding of the role of micro and macro
social forces in identity-formation and to a greater, albeit still limited,
understanding of the sustained ontological and structural links between
the gendered `self' and gender politics in society.
The development of theories which resuscitate the importance of
theorizing about contemporary gender politics and relations, the gen-
dered nature of political communities, institutions, states and nation-
hood seem most promising. While feminist sociology of education has
drawn upon psychoanalytic traditions, post-structuralism, cultural
theory, political economy and anthropology to sustain and develop its
concerns, there has only been limited connection until recently with
the wealth of feminist political theory. There is now a growing body of
feminist sociological work on citizenship in education which draws
upon female political theorists such as Pateman (1988; 1992), Young
(1995 ) and Yuval-Davis (1997) to address questions about gender as a
political rather than simply a social identity. Such theorizing has the
potential to challenge, at a more fundamental level, the construction
and taken-for-grantedness of the knowledge categories (for example, the
sexual/social contract, public/private distinctions) underlying liberal
democratic social orders, and their impact on the concepts of the worker
and the learner citizen promoted by schools (see Dillabough, 1999;
Gordon et al., 2000; Arnot and Dillabough, 2000). Feminist educational
research is, as a result, delving into new and more complex political
terrain. Such work maintains a sociological stance, but has developed a
stronger political analysis of gender relations based on its reliance on
feminist political theory.
Our consideration of feminist theories of education has been limited.
Such considerations do not, in themselves, explain every aspect of
feminist sociology of education. Indeed, such storytelling can accom-
modate only a reconstruction of the past and, in many cases, much of
the story is lost. However, at the same time, such mapping at the very
minimum signals the diversity and momentum of the current feminist
theoretical project. We hope we have identified the creative potential
and momentum of such feminist theorizing and the key role it still plays
in sociology of education today.
Acknowledgement
A version of this chapter will be published in D. Levinson, A. Sadovnik,

and J. Cookson, (eds) Education and Sociology: An Encyclopedia. New York:
Routledge Falmer.
3
Rethinking Social Justice: A
Conceptual Analysis
Sharon Gewirtz
Given the centrality of issues of social justice to so much policy±

sociology research in education, surprisingly little attention has been
devoted to exploring precisely what we mean, or ought to mean, when
we talk about social justice. This chapter represents an attempt to begin
to remedy this situation. It is in three parts. In the first part, I argue for
an extension of the boundaries of what is usually thought of as social
justice, suggesting that it should include a relational as well as a distribu-
tional dimension. I then go on to provide a critical review of four
approaches to social justice ± the liberal distributive approach, commu-
nitarian mutuality, postmodernist mutuality and the freedom from oppressive
relations model propounded by the socialist feminist theorist, Iris Marion
Young. In the final part, I draw on insights derived from the earlier
discussion to briefly sketch out a research agenda that education
policy±sociologists concerned about issues of social justice might pursue.
Rethinking the boundaries of social justice
Social justice has traditionally been understood as referring to the way

in which goods are distributed in society. I want to suggest that social
justice is more usefully understood in an expanded sense to refer to a
family of concerns about how everyone should be treated in a society we
believe to be good. Broadly conceived in this way, social justice can be said
to encompass two major dimensions ± a distributional and a relational
dimension.
The distributional dimension is concerned with the principles by
which goods are distributed in society. This is the conventional
conception of social justice, classically defined by Rawls (1972: 7) as
follows:
49
the subject matter of justice is the basic structure of society, or more

exactly, the way in which the major social institutions . . . distribute
fundamental rights and duties and determine the distribution of
advantages from social co-operation.
For Rawls, the concept of justice refers to à proper balance between

competing claims'. How goods are distributed is clearly a vital compo-
nent of how we treat each other. A society perceived to be good clearly
can not exist without a fair distribution of resources, both material and
non-material. Therefore, it is important for researchers concerned about
social justice to be clear about the principles which govern the distribu-
tion of goods in society. However, to `read' social justice as being exclu-
sively about distribution is severely limiting and it is important that we
conceptualize social justice in a broader way.
The relational dimension refers to the nature of the relationships
which structure society. A focus on this second dimension helps us to
theorize about issues of power and how we treat each other, both in the
sense of micro face-to-face interactions and in the sense of macro social
and economic relations which are mediated by institutions like the state
and the market. For Rawls, justice is about the distribution of rights,
duties, and the social and economic goods accruing from social co-
operation. It does not appear to be about the form of social co-operation
itself. It is the form of social co-operation ± that is the political/relational
system within which the distribution of social and economic goods,
rights and responsibilities takes place ± which is the concern of the
relational dimension. In one sense this can be conceived of as another
dimension of distributive justice in that in part it refers to the way in
which relations of power are distributed in society. But it is not just
about the distribution of power relations, nor is it just about the proce-
dures by which goods are distributed in society (commonly referred to as
procedural justice). Relational justice might include procedural justice,
but it is about more than this. It is about the nature and ordering of social
relations, the formal and informal rules which govern how members of
society treat each other both on a macro-level and at a micro interper-
sonal level. Thus it refers to the practices and procedures which govern
the organization of political systems, economic and social institutions,
families and one-to-one social relationships. These things cannot,
unproblematically, be conceptually reduced to matters of distribution.
One way of distinguishing between the distributional and relational
dimensions is by thinking of them as rooted within two contrasting
ontological perspectives. The distributional dimension is essentially
Rethinking Social Justice 51
individualistic and atomistic, in that it refers to how goods are distrib-

uted to individuals in society. In Miller's well-known formulation it
means ènsuring everyone receives their due' (Miller 1976: 20). By con-
trast, the relational dimension is holistic and non-atomistic, being
essentially concerned with the nature of interconnections between indi-
viduals in society, rather than with how much individuals get.
It could be argued that in separating out social justice into these two
dimensions I am creating a false distinction. Such an argument would
go something along these lines:
Social justice is about the distribution of goods. Whilst goods are

more usually narrowly conceived as referring to material things, the
definition of goods can and has been extended, as it was by Rawls, to
include non-tangible things, for example particular forms of relation-
ships. If relationships are goods, then the distinction disintegrates.
While this argument might be logical, I would nevertheless argue that it

is extremely worthwhile thinking about the two dimensions as separate,
albeit strongly connected. If we were to prioritize matters of distribution
and treat relationships as merely goods to be distributed, then we may
neglect proper consideration of the nature of those relational goods to
be distributed. As Young has argued, the `logic of redistribution' leads us
to focus upon `what individual persons have, how much they have, and
how that amount compares to what other persons have' rather than on
`what people are doing, according to what institutionalized rules, how
their doings and havings are structured by institutionalized relations
that constitute their positions, and how the combined effect of their
doings has recursive effects on their lives' (Young, 1990: 25).
Concepts like power, opportunity and self-respect are misrepresented if
subsumed into the distributional paradigm because they are more about
`doing' than `having'. To illustrate this point, Young takes the example of
opportunities. Within the distributional paradigm, opportunities are
made to sound like discrete goods that we can be allocated more or less
of. In contrast, Young argues that òpportunity is a concept of enable-
ment rather than possession' (p.26). As a result, it is wrong to think of
opportunities as things which are distributed. We have opportunities if we
are not constrained from doing things or if the conditions within which
we live enable us to do them. Therefore, the extent to which we have
opportunities depends upon the enabling possibilities generated by the
rules and practices of the society within which we operate, and by
the ways in which people treat each other in that society. So making a
judgement about the extent of opportunities we have involves

èvaluating not a distributive outcome but the social structures that
enable or constrain the individuals in relevant situations' (p.26).
In short, by isolating relational justice as a separate dimension, we are
forced to think in greater depth about the nature of the relationships
which structure society and which structure what we do, what we have
and the effects of what we do and have on our lives.
Four approaches to justice
I now want to go on to examine some of the most prominent ways in

which social justice ± in both its distributional and relational senses ±
has been understood within contemporary debates around social theory
and social welfare. I want first to look at dominant conceptions of
distributive justice and their shortcomings before going on to examine
two contrasting relational approaches. Finally, in this section of the
paper I want to consider a conceptualization of social justice that man-
ages ± in my view successfully ± to fuse the distributional and relational
dimensions. I will then go on in the final part of the paper to use this
discussion as a basis for outlining an agenda for research on education
policy and social justice.
Distributive justice
Dominant notions of distributive justice have tended to fall within two
categories. There is the traditional `weak' liberal definition of justice as
equality of opportunity and the more radical `strong' liberal version of
justice as equality of outcome. The equality of opportunity conceptualiza-
tion is neatly summarized by Kathleen Lynch (1995: 11) as follows:
Ùnequal results are justified if everyone has an equal opportunity to
succeed.' There are competing conceptions within the liberal tradition
of the precise conditions which need to be met for equality of opportunity
to exist. But usually equality of opportunity is viewed as being dependent
upon the existence of equal formal rights, equality of access and equality
of participation. Equality of outcome differs from equality of opportunity
in that it seeks to ensure equal rates of success for different groups in
society through direct intervention to prevent disadvantage, for example
via positive discrimination or affirmative action programmes.
Both of these liberal conceptions of social justice are limited, however,
to the extent that they do not confront what Lynch (1995: 24) refers to
as `the fundamental problems of hierarchies of power, wealth and other
privileges':
The fact remains that in a highly unequal society, someone has to

occupy the subordinate positions even if the identity of those
occupying them may change from white to black, from citizens to
migrant workers etc.
(Lynch 1995: 12)
It is in response to the limitations of liberal conceptualizations of equal-

ity that Lynch proposes a further èquality objective' which she refers to
as equality of condition:
If equality of condition were adopted as an objective, it would

involve the development of an egalitarian society which would be
committed to equality in the living conditions of all members of
society (both citizens and non-citizens) taking due account of their
heterogeneity be it arising from gender, ethnicity, disability, religion,
age, sexual orientation or any other attribute. It would not simply be
concerned with equalizing the position (access, participation and
outcome) of marginalized groups at each level within the hierarchies
of wealth, power and privilege. Rather, it would involve the equal-
ization of wealth, power and privilege. It would mean having sub-
stantial equality in working conditions, job satisfaction and income
across different occupations; an educational system devoted to devel-
oping equally the potentials of every member of society; a radically
democratic politics which aimed at the equal participation and influ-
ence of all citizens; and a restructuring of family and personal life for
the sake of enriching the personal relationships of every individual.
One of the attractions of Lynch's èquality of condition objective' is that

it encompasses both distributional and relational dimensions of social
justice and therefore offers a more holistic conceptualization than the
narrower more atomistic liberal conceptions. It is a conceptualization
which is complemented and extended by Young's formulation ± justice
as freedom from oppressive relations ± which I discuss below. But first, I
want to discuss two conceptualizations which are more firmly rooted
within the relational dimension.
Communitarian mutuality
Currently, extremely influential in mainstream social policy discourse is
the American sociologist Amitai Etzioni's notion of communitarianism,
the idea that a good society is one in which there is an ethic of mutuality
in which citizens are bound together through a system of duties and
obligations. For Etzioni (1996) communitarianism is concerned with

achieving a balance between centrifugal forces drawing individuals
towards autonomy with centripetal forces drawing them towards the
collectivity. Etzioni argues that a lack of equilibrium between the two
forces will either threaten the common good, through too much
emphasis on the individual, or threaten autonomy, through too much
emphasis on social duties. Communitarianism, according to Etzioni,
operates at the midpoint between the anarchy of excessive individual-
ism and the authoritarianism of excessive order.
Etzioni-inspired communitarianism carries a powerful normative
agenda which has led some commentators to refer to it as moral com-
munitarianism. (This label is also used to distinguish Etzioni's commu-
nitarianism from the communitarianism espoused by `radical left
pluralists' ± see Hughes and Mooney, 1998.) In particular, Etzioni's
communitarianism is based on a diagnosis of the contemporary United
States as having experienced a degeneration of moral and social values
and a breakdown of families and communities as a consequence of the
liberal commitment to rights which separate people from each other. Its
core argument is that people need the stability provided by agreed
modes of behaviour bolstered by shared moral values.
Strongly linked to ideas of communitarianism are discourses of citi-
zenship, stakeholding, inclusivity and social capital. I do not have the
space here to discuss all of these narratives of mutuality. Instead, in
order to provide a sense of communitarian conceptions of mutuality, I
will focus on some of the recommendations of the Commission on
Social Justice (CSJ) which was set up by the late leader of the UK Labour
Party, John Smith, with a brief to develop a `practical vision of social and
economic reform for the next century'. The CSJ's report (CSJ 1994) drew
heavily on a selection of communitarian narratives. For example,
Putnam's (1993b) notion of social capital was taken on board by the
CSJ and summarized as follows:
Social capital consists of the institutions and relationships of a thriv-

ing civil society ± from networks of neighbourhoods to extended
families, community groups to religious organizations, local busi-
nesses to local public services, youth clubs to parent±teacher associa-
tions, playgroups to police on the beat. Where you live, who else lives
there and how they live their lives ± cooperatively or selfishly, respons-
ibly or destructively ± can be as important as personal resources in
determining life chances . . . . The moral and social reconstruction of
our society depends on our willingness to invest in social capital.
We badly need to mend a social fabric that is so obviously torn

apart.
(CSJ 1994: 308±9)
For the CSJ, investment in social capital was partly about a redistribution
of resources to ensure, for example, that children do not grow up in
poverty. It was also about a redistribution of responsibilities, obligations
or duties around, for example, childrearing. But it was not just about
redistribution. It was also about shifts in the nature of participation and
about a restructuring of power relations in society.
Communitarian ideas were manifested in a range of policy proposals
put forward by the CSJ. For example, the commission advocated the
setting up of a `Citizens' Service':
a new voluntary community service scheme reflects our ambition to

create a `something for something' society, rich in civic wealth and
social capital, where rights are matched by responsibilities, where
mutual respect and individual fulfilment proceed side by side,
where independence and mutuality are not opposed but can be
combined.
(CSJ 1994: 362)
The aim was to give young people à stake in the system ± some power,
responsibility, opportunity'. This proposal and the notion of a `some-
thing for something society' owes much to Etzioni's belief that there is a
moral deficit in society arising from an imbalance between rights and
responsibilities. For Etzioni, provisions are needed which will enable
individuals to accept greater responsibility towards themselves and
others as a way of recompensing the community for any excess of rights
received. Similar thinking underpins New Labour's Welfare-to-Work
scheme, within which the right of unemployed people to state benefits
is counterbalanced by a duty to take up one of the offers provided by the
state.
These versions of mutuality are essentially neo-Fabian and reformist.
They differ from traditional Fabianism in some respects in that they
embody a degree of scepticism towards the paternalism of old-style
Beveridgean welfare bureaucracies (CSJ 1994: 104±6). However, the dis-
courses of inclusion and accountability are Fabian in the sense that they
are about reimporting a social conscience into capitalism and curbing its
worst excesses, but the social relations of capitalism are not in them-
selves problematized.
Let me now turn, to a somewhat different approach to the concept of

social justice as mutuality ± that adopted within certain variants of
postmodernist thought.
Postmodernist mutuality
From a Foucauldian position, it is neither possible nor desirable to
develop universal principles from which we can determine the validity
or desirability of particular social or political programmes of reform. The
suggestion is that universal notions like justice are dangerous and
oppressive (Foucault, 1974; Rabinow, 1986). As a result, there is seen to
be no value in attempting to identify one set of principles which is
applicable to the specific situations of all social groups in all kinds of
society. For Foucault, political struggle involves each social group speak-
ing for themselves and reacting to the particular power structures within
which they are enmeshed, rather than being spoken for by others
(Macey, 1993). From this perspective, one of the dangers of universaliz-
ing theories of justice is that they can marginalize or oppress particular
social groups. David Harvey captures the essence of this critique as
follows:
too many colonial people have suffered at the hands of Western

imperialism's particular justice, too many African-Americans have
suffered at the hands of white man's justice, too many women from
the justice imposed by a patriarchal order and too many workers from
the justice imposed by capitalists, to make the concept anything
other than problematic.
(1993: 95)
Postmodernist versions of mutuality arise from attempts by what

Ebert (1991) has called resistance postmodernists to avoid the extreme
relativism of the Foucauldian position in order to develop principles of
justice which can form the basis of a postmodern politics. The challenge
is how to balance two apparently oppositional moral obligations ± to
recognize different cultural identities and experiences and to create
forms of solidarity ± in order to construct a politics:
which works with and through difference, which is able to build

those forms of solidarity and identification which make common
struggle and resistance possible but without suppressing the real
heterogeneity of interests and identities . . .
(Hall, 1988: 28)
A postmodernist ethic of mutuality represents an attempt to resolve this

tension between the heterogeneity of interests and identities, on the
one hand, and solidarity and common struggle, on the other. I want to
explicate this approach by drawing on the work of Peter Leonard (1997)
who discusses what a postmodern ethic of mutuality might mean in the
context of welfare practice.
Leonard attempts to resolve the tension between solidarity and differ-
ence by arguing that whilst it is vital to recognize difference it is impor-
tant also to recognize that there is a degree of sameness in people's
experiences:
exclusive emphasis on individual biography fragments resistance and

leads to a focus on an assertion of individual pathology which is
innocent of the structural forces which constitute the determining
context of people's health and well-being. An alternative practice is
one which, while recognizing individual difference and cultural
diversity, engages in a discourse on the similarities between subjects
confronting problems of health, personal identity or material survi-
val, similarities which may be embedded in common experiences of
class, gender and race.
(1997: 165)
For Leonard, this practice, with its emphasis on commonality and soli-
darity may enable subjects to participate in collective resistance in pur-
suit of claims for welfare. Leonard sees feminist practice in psychiatry,
psychology, social work, counselling and therapy às the exemplar of the
possibilities of an approach to solidarity in the context of diversity
which could be further widely developed within the welfare field'
(1997: 166). His solution is à discourse on interdependence' that is
opposed both to the atomism implicit in the extreme relativism of
sceptical postmodernism and the atomism explicit in neo-liberal
discourses:
Human needs might be seen as the expression of the mutual inter-

dependency of human subjects, an interdependence which domi-
nant discourses attempt to mask in their opposition to a politics of
collectivity which ultimately rests on the mutual dependency of
subjects upon each other. It is, perhaps, a recognition of this mutual
interdependence which would be at the root of a reinvented idea of
welfare, an idea which is alien to the ideological commitments of
those who would diminish it in the interests of a Hobbesian and
neo-Darwinist conception of welfare as, at most, a grudging, residual

function of the state . . . . A concept of mutually interdependent sub-
jects, then, is crucial to a politics of collective resistance and, in
particular, community action. The point is to extend the actual
experience and realization of interdependence beyond the bound-
aries of a politics of particular identities, ìmagined communities' or
single-issue social movements. Only by such an extension to include,
at least potentially, all the communities and social identities that
experience the present social order as domination, is postmodern
particularist politics likely to have any possibility of rectifying its
present weakness ± its inability to challenge the politics, economic
priorities and mass culture of late capitalism.
(1997: 158±9)
Postmodern conceptions of mutuality also rest upon what Fraser

(1997a), drawing on the work of the political theorists Axel Honneth
(1992) and Charles Taylor (1992), has called a politics of recognition:
we owe our integrity. . . to the receipt of approval or recognition from

other persons. [Negative concepts such as ìnsult' or `degradation']
are related to forms of disrespect, to the denial of recognition. [They]
are used to characterize a form of behavior that does not represent an
injustice solely because it constrains the subjects in their freedom for
action or does them harm. Rather, such behavior is injurious because
it impairs those persons in their positive understanding of self ± an
understanding acquired by intersubjective means.
(Honneth 1992: 188±9; cited in Fraser 1997a: 14)
A politics of recognition demands a commitment to respond to others in

a way which does not injure their positive conceptions of themselves,
and to avoid practising the power of surveillance, control and discipline
upon others. Drawing on a Foucauldian critique of power as exercised by
professional experts, it attempts to identify an alternative stance that
welfare professionals can take up which is resistant to surveilling and
disciplining others. Practically, according to Leonard, this entails listen-
ing before we act, and he gives the example of the response of white
people to the plight of Aboriginal peoples:
When we face the enormity of the cultural losses experienced by

many Aboriginal peoples at the hands of the state health, welfare
and education services, we may feel compelled to act, to put things
right again in their interests. But we are told to listen first, to glimpse
the overwhelming pain which cultural loss brings and to remember
that it was the modern responsibility to act which led to the cultural
losses in the first place. We may act if the Other wishes us to, and on
their terms, but only after reflection, trying to relax the imperative to
organize and classify with our plans and projects.
(Leonard 1997: 152±3)
A politics of recognition is valuable because it can inform more

socially just micro practices of welfare. Rather than the welfare
professional surveilling, controlling and disciplining their clients,
what is proposed ± and practized by some feminist counsellors and
therapists ± is the
co-authorship of a joint narrative about problems, needs and claims.

Because every narrative (of the professional as well as the client) is
open to interpretation, we are speaking here of efforts to establish a
dialogue of the interpretations of narratives where recognition of the
diversity of subjects is established as a priority.
(Leonard 1997: 164)
However, what postmodernist versions of relational justice fail to do is

to specify in any developed sense the particular conceptions of social
justice which need to inform collective resistance to the dominations
experienced by various groups of marginalized others. Leonard identifies
some potential targets of that resistance, namely the disciplinary power
of professionals, the commodification of culture and the manufacture of
desire and the economic discourse of global market necessity. But he
does not identify precisely what conceptions of social justice underpin
his choice of targets. I now want to turn to a conceptualization of social
justice which builds on postmodern insights around mutuality and
recognition but which, I would suggest, can more usefully inform anti-
oppressive political and social activities.
Iris Young's conception of justice as `freedom from oppressive

relations'
In this chapter I have argued that conventional distributive conceptua-
lizations of social justice are limited because they fail to address the
forms of social co-operation ± for example, the hierarchies of power
and privilege ± within which distribution takes place. I have also pointed
to some of the weaknesses in the communitarian and postmodernist
relational versions of justice. One of the key limitations of communi-

tarian mutuality ± apart from its heavy moral authoritarian overtones ±
is that, by attempting to promote a coincidence of interests
between capitalists and other citizens, it ignores the injustice of
exploitation which is inherent within capitalism. Postmodernist
mutuality also fails to properly address capitalist structures of
oppression. This is, at least in part, because it tends to focus on the
level of ùnmediated face-to-face relations'. Harvey explains why this is a
problem:
In modern mass urban society, the multiple mediated relations which

constitute that society across time and space are just as important
and as àuthentic' as unmediated face-to-face relations. It is just as
important for a politically responsible person to know about and
respond politically to all those people who daily put breakfast on
our table, even though market exchange hides from us the condi-
tions of life of the producers . . . . Relationships between individuals
get mediated through market functions and state powers, and we
have to define conceptions of social justice capable of operating
across and through these multiple mediations. But this is a realm of
politics which postmodernism typically avoids.
(Harvey 1993: 106)
A discourse of interdependence and a politics of recognition are

important, insofar as they provide an ethical and practical basis for
relationships marked by mutuality and a celebration and respect of
difference. Ideas of interdependence and recognition are also valuable
politically to the extent that they may help produce a sense of collective
resistance to domination of various kinds. They are however also limited
politically because they are not conceptions of social justice which can
usefully inform the direction and content of collective action. A more
useful conceptualization in this sense is provided by Young who identi-
fies `five faces of oppression':
exploitation (the transfer of the fruits of the labour from one group to
another, as, for example, in the cases of workers giving up surplus
value to capitalists or women in the domestic sphere transferring the
fruits of their labour to men), marginalization (the expulsion of people
from useful participation in social life so that they are `potentially
subjected to severe material deprivation and even extermination'),
powerlessness (the lack of that àuthority, status, and sense of self'
which would permit a person to be listened to with respect), cultural

imperialism (stereotyping in behaviours as well as in various forms of
cultural expression such that `the oppressed group's own experience
and interpretation of social life finds little expression that touches
the dominant culture, while that same culture imposes on the
oppressed group its experience and interpretation of social life');
and violence (the fear and actuality of random, unprovoked attacks,
which have `no motive except to damage, humiliate, or destroy the
person').
(Harvey 1993: 106±7, citing Young 1990)
Young's multi-dimensional conception, I would suggest, represents a

rich and holistic fusion of distributional and relational approaches to
social justice that is sensitive to the inextricable linkages between the
two dimensions. Thus exploitation, marginalization and powerlessness
are all viewed as emanating from forms of structural and institutional
relationship that limit the material resources of subordinated groups
and deny them concrete opportunities to develop and exercise their
capacities (Young 1990: 58). Young also usefully incorporates post-
modernist conceptions of mutuality and recognition into her frame-
work, partly through the identification of cultural imperialism as a
mode of oppression that is produced and sustained by dominant groups
managing to establish their own perspectives and experiences as uni-
versal or neutral. The experiences of those who are culturally oppressed
are thereby rendered invisible or defined as deviant or òther' (1990: 60).
But Young's conceptualization also addresses the limitations of post-
modern conceptualizations. It seems to me, that because it is rooted in
a political±economic analysis of social life, it constitutes a more useful
underpinning to political action than the other conceptions I have
identified. It focuses on the `multiple mediated relations' of mass
urban society as well as upon unmediated face-to-face relations and
thereby specifically can help inform identification of the necessary
targets of any collective political action, while not losing sight of the
importance of mutuality and recognition. As Harvey notes, it is also
useful because it
emphasizes the heterogeneity of experience of injustice ± someone

unjustly treated in the workplace can act oppressively in the domes-
tic sphere and the victim of that may, in turn, resort to cultural
imperialism against others.
(Harvey 1993: 107)
Young's attempt to integrate the distributional and relational dimen-

sions of justice is not however universally acclaimed. In particular it has
been challenged by Nancy Fraser (1997a and b) for failing to recognize
the tensions between a politics of redistribution and a politics of recog-
nition. However, as I have argued elsewhere (Gewirtz 1998), while valid
in certain respects, Fraser's exposition of what she calls `the redistribu-
tion±recognition dilemma' is flawed in some senses and leaves Young's
conceptualization largely intact. A more compelling and politically use-
ful aspect of Fraser's contribution to the debate, as I see it, is her `critical
theory of recognition', which distinguishes between four contrasting
attitudes towards `difference'. The first sees differences as artefacts of
oppression. Fraser argues that the proper political response to such
differences, like the stunting of skills and capacities, is to abolish
them. The second sees differences as manifestations of the cultural
superiority of the oppressed over their oppressors. These differences,
like `feminine nurturance', Fraser suggests, should not be celebrated as
differences but should be extended to those who manifest inferior traits
like competitiveness and instrumentalism. The third views differences
as simply variations which should neither be abolished nor extended
but affirmed and valued. The fourth attitude, and the one advocated by
Fraser, is that there are different types of difference:
Some differences are of type 1 and should be eliminated; others are of

type 2 and should be universalized; still others are of type 3 and
should be enjoyed. This position . . . . militates against any politics of
difference that is wholesale and undifferentiated. It entails a more
differentiated politics of difference.
(Fraser 1997a: 204)
It is clearly vital that we do not uncritically affirm and celebrate all

expressions of difference. This is not simply because some expressions of
difference are antagonistic to a politics of redistribution, but because
some are oppressive in themselves (for example neo-Nazism). However,
the critical theory of recognition does not undermine Young's freedom
from oppressive relations conceptualization of social justice, since that
conceptualization is perfectly capable of accommodating a à differen-
tiated politics of difference'. I would want to elaborate Young's frame-
work in only one respect in response to Fraser's objections. That is, in
thinking about the third face of oppression, cultural imperialism and
how we oppose it, we need to adopt Fraser's more differentiated theory
of difference. In other words we need to consider which aspects of
difference ought to be abolished (either because they are themselves

oppressive or because they interfere with redistribution), which should
be affirmed and which universalized.
Conclusion: a social justice agenda for education policy

sociology
The breadth and richness of Young's conceptualization of social justice, I

want to suggest, makes it a useful framework for thinking about an
agenda for social justice research in relation to education policy. I have
argued that it incorporates what is good in postmodern conceptualiza-
tions of social justice, but overcomes their limitations as well as those of
the more traditional liberal distributive conceptions. Modified to take
account of Fraser's concerns ± about the need to avoid a `politics of
difference that is wholesale and undifferentiated' (Fraser 1997a: 204) ±
Young's framework provides us with a wide-ranging set of questions
which need to be ± and indeed in some quarters are being ± addressed
by the education policy sociology community. These questions might be
formulated as follows:
How, to what extent and why do education policies support, interrupt
or subvert:
1. exploitative relationships (capitalist, patriarchal, racist, heterosex-
ist, disablist and so on) within and beyond educational institu-
tions?
2. processes of marginalization and inclusion within and beyond the
education system?
3. the promotion of relationships based on recognition, respect, care
and mutuality or produce powerlessness (for education workers
and students)?
4. violent practices within and beyond the education system?
5. practices of cultural imperialism within and beyond the educa-
tion system? Finally, which cultural differences should be
affirmed, which should be universalized and which rejected?
Clearly this framework is broad and needs further clarification and
explication, and further questions need to be asked. For example, if we
agree that Young's conceptualization is a useful starting point, does
the agenda I have set out ask the right questions in the right way or are
there other questions we need to ask? We then need to think about
how successfully our own research to date has contributed to a social
justice agenda of whatever type we identify as being appropriate. What
have been the strengths and the limitations and what work still needs to
be done?
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Alan Cribb and Carol Vincent for their very useful
comments on an earlier version of this chapter which appeared in the
Journal of Education Policy (Gewirtz 1998).
4
The New IQism: Intelligence,
Àbility' and the Rationing of
Education
David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell
Bad blood, feeble-mindedness, genetic inferiority, eugenics . . . these terms are

associated with another age: they are the discredited and disgraced
language of a pseudo- scientific tradition that wrought incredible injust-
ice during the 20th century and are widely viewed with contempt. Such
terms are no longer used but, we will argue, the same underlying
approaches continue to exert a powerful influence on the policy and
practice of contemporary education. This is the new IQism where talk of
àbility' replaces (and encodes) previous talk of intelligence.
In this chapter we explore the school-based processes that might
explain why, at a time of rising overall achievement, there has also
been a consistent increase in relative inequalities of attainment, espe-
cially in relation to social class and ethnic origin. In a chapter of this
length we cannot address all the complexities involved, and elsewhere
we have considered some of these questions in considerably more detail
(see Gillborn and Youdell 2000). Our purpose here is to focus on one
particular aspect of the processes, namely, the role of àbility' in the
dominant discourses. We argue that àbility' has come to be understood
(by policymakers and practitioners alike) as a proxy for common sense
notions of ìntelligence'. These views, long discredited by science and
history alike, offer an apparently fair and just means for the rationing of
education. In fact, àbility' is constituted in ways that provide for the
systematic disadvantaging of particular socially defined groups, espe-
cially children of working-class and Black/African-Caribbean heritage.
In this way the discredited and abhorrent ideologies of hereditarian
IQism have come to exercise a powerful influence on the realities of
contemporary education. In this new IQism, talk of àbility' serves the
same purpose and creates the same consequences as earlier, more expli-
cit notions of ìntelligence' and ÌQ'.
65
Our chapter begins by outlining the scale of the inequalities asso-

ciated with the period of English education reform that started in
the late 1980s. A brief introduction to our qualitative research project
then leads into a discussion of the À-to-C economy'; our term for the
competitive and increasingly fraught realities of secondary schooling in
a system dominated by annually published league tables of perform-
ance. We then consider how àbility' is constituted in teacher discourse,
looking at how teachers' talk and act in relation to a particular view of
what àbility' is and who has it. We explore the links between this
discourse and hereditarian understandings of ìntelligence' and IQ.
The parallels are much closer than most policymakers and teachers
might suppose and, in particular, echo the hereditarian view that work-
ing-class and Black children do not share equally in the distribution of
àbility'. Finally we show how these beliefs are institutionalized through
the rationing of education that schools adopt as a means of surviving
the A±to±C economy. In this form of educational triage the needs
of some pupils are sacrificed to the more important goal of raising
attainment in the league table statistics. The decisions are justified by
recourse to differences in àbility' and, in this way, the systematic failing
of disproportionate numbers of working-class and Black children is
legitimized.
Reform and equity
The Education Reform Act (1988) heralded the beginning of a period of

education reform in the UK that has been more extensive, and divisive,
than anything undertaken since the post-war period of the late 1940s and
1950s. Whereas the movement toward `comprehensive' education in the
1960s was widely supported within the teaching profession and moved
ahead locally at different paces (not least depending on the views of Local
Education Authorities), for example, the reforms of the late 1980s and
1990s have been pushed through by successive governments often in the
face of opposition from the teaching profession and/or LEAs.
The reforms in Britain,1 like those promoted in many other capitalist
societies during this period, have sought to create an education market-
place where education is reconceptualized as a `product' and where
pupils and parents become `consumers', free (within limits) to exercise
choice. In this way, so the theory runs, `standards' will be driven up in a
market where poor producers will simply go out of business.2 In many-
ways the English reforms go beyond those enacted elsewhere and anticip-
ate measures advocated by some reformers in the US (Chubb and Moe
The New IQism 67
1992). The reforms included the creation of new types of school (Grant
Maintained schools and City Technology Colleges) that were centrally
funded and independent of LEA control (and often funded more gener-
ously than comparable LEA schools). Additionally, a National Curric-
ulum was introduced, dictating the broad content of the curriculum for
children aged 5±16 (the years of compulsory schooling), and enforced
first, through an increasingly punitive inspections service (with the
power to declare schools as `failing'),3 and second, by a system of
national tests (Standard Assessment Tasks ± SATs) administered at parti-
cular `key stages'. Another innovation was the publication of national
`performance tables', which list each school in the country and give a
range of information about their size and the test grades attained by
their pupils. Tables of secondary school performance were first pub-
lished in 1992 and were immediately seized upon by the press as `league
tables' that could indicate the `best/worst' schools in every LEA and,
indeed, nationally (more on this below). Subsequently, in 1997, similar
tables were produced listing all primary schools.
The reforms have been associated with some dramatic changes in the
outcomes of compulsory schooling. In the decade following the 1988
Education Reform Act, the proportion of pupils attaining five or more
higher grade passes rose significantly, so that half as many again now
achieve what used to be considered an elite measure (see Figure 4.1).
This is an important change but it does not necessarily spell good news
for everyone. In fact, behind the headline figure of year-on-year
improvements lies a pattern of growing inequality.
50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
Figure 4.1 Pupils attaining five or more `higher grade' GCSE passes (A*±C),
England 1988±98
Source: adapted from data published in Payne (1995) and the Department for Education &
Employment
The area of attainment inequality4 that has generated most concern

among media and policy commentators in recent years concerns gender
or, to be more precise, the attainment of boys. There has been a good
deal of critical discussion about these issues and it is clear that talk of a
crisis of boy's under-achievement is over-blown (David and Weiner
1997; Epstein et al. 1998). Nevertheless, it is true that, particularly at
age 16, there is a now a clear and growing inequality of attainment
between boys and girls (Arnot et al. 1998; Murphy and Elwood 1998).
This trend is clearly visible in Figure 4.2. Such a stark comparison
between the sexes should always carry a strong health warning: there
are considerable complexities that are hidden in such bold figures, not
least differences in curricular specialization. Yet even this apparently
stark difference pales somewhat when compared with inequalities
related to ethnic origin and social class.
Patterns of attainment related to ethnic origin are increasingly com-
plex. Contemporary research is better able to deal with some of the
subtleties of ethnic identification and new approaches reveal divisions
and differences that were often obscured in previous work (cf. Gillborn
and Gipps 1996; Modood et al. 1997; Richardson and Wood 1999).
Nevertheless, it remains the case that several minority ethnic groups
experience significant and consistent inequalities of attainment, espe-
cially pupils of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and African-Caribbean heritage
(Ofsted 1999). As yet unpublished research, by scholars working at
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
Boys
15%
Girls
10%
5%
0%
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
Figure 4.2 Five or more `higher grade' GCSE passes (A*±C) by gender, 1988±93
Source: Demack et al. (1998)
The New IQism 69
Sheffield Hallam University, indicates clearly that young people in these

minority groups have not shared equally in the overall improvement in
attainment.5 Although Bangladeshi, Pakistani and African-Caribbean
pupils now achieve higher average scores than at any time in the past,
their pattern of improvement has not been as consistent or as high as that
of their white peers. Consequently the relative inequality of attainment has
actually worsened. This is shown most clearly in Figure 4.3, which com-
pares the attainments of white and African-Caribbean pupils between the
mid-1980s and 1990s. White pupils have drawn most benefit from the
improved levels of attainment associated with the reforms: despite doing
better than ever before, African-Caribbean pupils now face a Black/White
gap that has grown by more than half as much again since the mid 1980s.
Social class, like `race' and ethnicity, was systematically removed from
the policy agenda under the 18 years of Conservative rule that began
in 1979. The realities of an economically stratified society were
denied by the ideology of individualism and market economics that
sought to present everyone simply as self-sufficient consumers. Mar-
garet Thatcher's (in)famous statement that there is `no such thing as
society' perfectly encapsulated an ideological drive that reduced every-
thing to individualized relationships between providers and consumers,
and understood inequality variously as a sign of personal/community
deficit or part of the necessary spur to achievement in a meritocracy:
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
White
10%
Black
5%
0%
1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
Figure 4.3 The Black/White gap (1985±96): five or more `higher grade' GCSE
passes (A*±C) by ethnic origin, both sexes
Source: adapted from YCS data published previously in Commission for Racial Equality (1998:
2), Drew (1995: 76) and Demack et al. (1998).
If irresponsible behaviour does not involve penalty of some kind,

irresponsibility will for a large number of people become the norm.
More important still, the attitudes may be passed on to their children,
setting them off in the wrong direction.
(Thatcher 1993: 626±7)
Not surprisingly, in the face of such a policy stance, the Tories' educa-
tion reforms did nothing to address existing class inequalities. Indeed, as
was the case with `race' issues, the refusal to address present inequalities
left the way clear for even greater divisions to emerge. As Figure 4.4
demonstrates, the national data again show a pattern of growing
inequalities. The inequalities are even greater than those associated
with ethnic origin and it is interesting to note the pronounced differ-
ences in attainment between the various non-manual groups (often
lumped together in previous analyses).
Quantitative evidence charts a clear association between the educa-
tion reforms and a dual pattern of first, rising levels of overall achieve-
ment, and second, growing inequalities between different social groups.
This pattern is true for gender but most pronounced in terms of ethnic
origin and social class. This provides the context for the qualitative
research reported in the remainder of our paper: it is a context of con-
tinual reform, pronounced teacher uncertainty and heightened surveil-
lance and control. Building on two-years ethnographic research, we will
outline an analysis of increased selection and segregation which, we
believe, sheds light on the wider processes by which a concern with
`standards' and àccountability' has led to increasing inequality of edu-
cational opportunity.
80%
70%
60% - Professional
- Managerial
50%
(N) - Skilled (non manual)
40%
(M) - Skilled (manual)
30%
- Partly Skilled
20% - Un Skilled
10%
0%
1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993
Figure 4.4 Five or more `higher grade' GCSE passes (A*±C) by social class, both
sexes, 1988±93
Source: Demack et al. (1998)
The New IQism 71
The research
This chapter draws on qualitative research conducted in two London

secondary schools, which we call Taylor Comprehensive and Clough Grant
Maintained.6 Between 1995 and 1997 we conducted interviews and
observations with teachers and pupils in both schools, focusing in
particular on two year groups. First, a group of pupils in year 9 (aged
13 and 14), who we followed through the subject òption' process. This
is a key point in the pupils' secondary schooling where their aspirations
can clash with the school's judgement of their past and likely future
academic performance. Second, we worked with a group of year 11
pupils (aged 15 and 16) who we followed through to the end of their
compulsory schooling, including the completion of their examination
courses. In both cases we used mixed ability form groups as the basis for
our sample.7
The schools provide a fascinating combination of similarities and
differences (summarized in Figure 4.5). Both are located in outer Lon-
don boroughs and serve a pupil population where around one-in-three
are in receipt of free school meals (FSM) ± a common proxy measure to
indicate family poverty. Both schools are multi-ethnic and co-educa-
tional. In other respects they differ considerably: Taylor enjoys a con-
sistently full roll and compares favourably in the local GCSE `league
table'. In contrast, Clough GM has a relatively poor reputation locally
and is under-subscribed. Perhaps the most important difference between
the schools lies in their ethos. Many teachers in Taylor describe it as `the
last comprehensive'. They are proud of its tradition of drawing from
across a wide range of class backgrounds and strongly support the head-
teachers' commitment to mixed ability teaching. Teachers in Clough
GM often complain that the school is `not a proper comprehensive', by
which they mean that it does not attract a `balanced' intake. A striking
feature of the school is how frequently staff emphasize the `bottom
heavy' nature of the intake, what one teacher refers to as its `long tail'
of low attaining pupils. The school has adopted a policy of increased
selection `by ability'. One of the spurs for leaving LEA control and
adopting Grant Maintained (GM) status was to take advantage of the
possibilities for selection on entry that Conservative governments had
extended to GM schools. Additionally, the school's headteacher pro-
motes the use of selection internally, including the use of `setting' by
ability in separate subject areas.
Clough GM and Taylor Comprehensive, therefore, adopt markedly
different policies toward the use of selection: the former has embraced
TAYLOR COMPREHENSIVE
`the last comprehensive'
Composition
co-educational (roughly balanced)
multi-ethnic:
principal groups: White (75%) & African-
Caribbean (10%)
around one-third pupils receive free school meals
attracts some middle class pupils
Profile
consistently full roll
6th form (80% of leavers return)
Achievement
exceeds national average for five-plus A*±to±C passes
highest achieving maintained co-educational comprehensive
in its borough
CLOUGH GRANT MAINTAINED

`not a proper comprehensive'
Composition
co-educational (60% boys)
multi-ethnic:
principal groups: White (57%), African-
Caribbean (16%) & South Asian (20%)
around one-third pupils receive free school meals
overwhelmingly working class
Profile
under-subscribed
no 6th form
Achievement
below national average for five-plus A*±to±C passes
poor reputation; low in LEA league table
seeking to extend selection (at entry and throughout years
7±11)
Figure 4.5 Taylor Comprehensive & Clough Grant Maintained
selection while the latter continues to champion mixed ability group-

ing. Despite these differences in policy, our data suggest that both
schools are increasingly rationing the time and effort they expend on
different groups of pupils. This similarity reflects the crucial importance
that both schools accord to the level of examination success that is
recorded in the officially published performance tables.
The New IQism 73
The A±to±C economy
A school now lives or dies on its results.

(Pastoral Head of Year, Taylor Comprehensive)
the staff here now are under pressure to get As±to±Cs. I mean con-
siderable pressure like, you know, that's never existed before.
(Head of Department with more than 15 years teaching experience, Clough
GM)
The annually published school performance tables have attained a posi-

tion of enormous influence. Since their inception, in 1992, there has
been considerable debate about the unfairness of publishing raw data on
examination performance in the absence of contextualizing informa-
tion on the pupil cohorts concerned. For example, LEA-maintained
comprehensive schools, that operate no selection at entry, are listed
alongside private schools that select up to 100 per cent of their pupil
intake. The tables are published by the Department for Education and
Employment (DfEE) in alphabetical order within each LEA district but
they are frequently turned into `league tables' by national and local
newspapers keen to attach `best' and `worst' labels to individual institu-
tions. Whenever this occurs one measure dominates as a basis for the
ranking; the proportion of final year pupils attaining five or more higher
grade passes in their GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education)
exams. `Higher grade' passes include grades from A* (the so-called
`starred A'), through A, B and C grades. The remaining pass grades (D
through F) are not generally considered to carry weight with employers
or institutions of further and higher education.8 New measures have
been added to the secondary school tables each year but the dominant
criterion remains the same. Despite the caveats surrounding the inter-
pretation of such material, whenever schools are called upon to describe
their attainments, whenever the media (including the educational
press) describe a school, and whenever the government talks of `stand-
ards', the first statistic to be quoted is most likely the proportion of
pupils attaining at least five higher grade passes.
Both our case study schools recognize the importance attached to this
measure of performance and have prioritized it within their own discus-
sions and policy decisions. Teachers, from the headteachers through to
the most junior member of staff, feel under scrutiny according to this
measure and, with varying degrees of reluctance, most have come to
view it as the dominant measure of their own success as educators. Our
interview data project a strong and consistent picture of teachers feeling

trapped within a wider system that not only judges them according to
an unfair criterion but demands year-on-year improvements. In this
sense schools and teachers are in competition with themselves, as well
as others, because a stable performance rating can be interpreted as
showing a lack of progress:
I don't think we're getting much understanding from senior manage-

ment over that sort of thing but, you know, they've got targets to hit
`cause they're set targets by the governors. So they then put the
pressure on us (. . .) the whole thing's motivated by league tables
now isn't it? That's what's motivated everybody.
(Head of Faculty, Clough GM)
We describe this situation as `the A±to±C economy'.9 The economic

metaphor encapsulates how participants, both teachers and pupils,
experience the current situation (as competition); how they talk about
it (where grades are the `currency' of education); and how high are the
stakes (survival for the school/access to education and labour markets
for young people). The notion of an A±to±C economy also captures
something of the de-personalized nature of the processes within which
teachers and pupils feel caught. There is a very real sense in which
participants on both sides of the school desk feel trapped within a
system where the rules are made by others and where external forces,
much bigger than any individual school, teacher or pupil, are setting the
pace that all must follow.
In both our case study schools the A±to±C economy has been largely
accepted as a fact of life (though not necessarily welcomed) by most
members of staff. In particular, the headteachers and other members of
the schools' senior management teams (SMTs) have played a crucial role
in translating the national reforms into a particular agenda for their
institution. In Taylor Comprehensive, for example, in an internally
circulated document to staff the headteacher identifies the school's
main task as to:
prepare pupils for the demands of the GCSE. All else at KS4 [Key Stage
4] is subordinate to this supreme and unavoidable constraint.
(Headteacher, memorandum to staff, Taylor Comprehensive)
The identification of the GCSE as a `constraint' might be taken to

suggest that the headteacher does not wholly subscribe to its `supremacy'.
The New IQism 75
However, its presentation as ùnavoidable' confirms the status accorded

GCSE grades and, in the headteachers' eyes, this criterion is so powerful
that pupils' interests are now assumed to be synonymous with the terms
of the A±to±C economy:
the best thing that we can do for our pupils is to strive to get the
greatest possible proportion achieving that five high-grade bench-
mark.
(Headteacher, memorandum to staff, Taylor Comprehensive)
The headteacher in Clough GM adopts the same position. He is certain

that higher grade passes are the only hard currency in this economy:
we do emphasize the fact that if at all possible you should attempt

to achieve a grade C. They're not really, I mean not necessarily
because of league tables but because the fact of the matter is that
Cs and above have some currency in the world out there, whereas
Ds and below are still viewed by most people as failures. (. . .) the
hard facts are that Cs are worth very much more than anything below
a C.
(Headteacher, Clough GM)
Elsewhere we have examined in detail how the case study schools

have responded to the A±to±C economy (Gillborn and Youdell 2000).
In this chapter we wish to focus on the view of àbility' that informs
their actions. Our argument is that àbility' has come to act as a respect-
able and officially sanctioned proxy for the more highly contested
notion of intelligence. We conclude that a `new IQism' is emerging,
where the beliefs and prejudices familiar as a facet of eugenicist
IQism10 are operationalized (usually without debate nor critical reflec-
tion) as part of a `common-sense' solution to the problems posed by the
A±to±C economy.
Constructing àbility'
In seeking to respond to, and survive, the A±to±C economy both schools
have come to rely on a particular understanding of àbility'. This under-
standing is vitally important because it informs the schools' decisions
about how best they can raise performance in relation to the A±to±C
criterion and, most significantly, it shapes their views about which
pupils can and cannot be expected to enhance the league table scores.
Before examining how certain groups are positioned as `less-able' it is

useful, therefore, to clarify the dominant view of àbility' that circulates
within the schools.
Talk of àbility' is extremely common in contemporary education
discourse but the meaning of the term (let alone its consequences) are
rarely discussed. For example, teachers daily talk of differences in àbil-
ity' between pupils and Government policy takes for granted a common
sense view of àbility' as unevenly distributed between individuals. In
1997 the incoming Labour government made education the focus of its
first detailed policy statements and asserted that:
The demands for equality and increased opportunity in the 1950s

and 1960s led to the introduction of comprehensive schools. All-in
secondary schooling rightly became the normal pattern, but
the search for equality of opportunity in some cases became a ten-
dency to uniformity. The idea that all children had the same rights to
develop their abilities led too easily to the doctrine that all had the
same ability. The pursuit of excellence was too often equated with
elitism.
(DfEE 1997: 11, emphasis added)
This further reinforced a position outlined in the Labour Party's election

manifesto which confidently asserted:
Children are not all of the same ability, nor do they learn at the same speed.
That means `setting' children in classes to maximize progress, for the
benefit of high fliers and slower learners alike.
(Labour Party 1997: 7, emphasis added)
In this way the Government has not only asserted that ability exists as
an apparently measurable trait but also that it is unevenly distributed
and that the best way of teaching is to separate pupils accordingly.11
Although Taylor Comprehensive largely resists the push towards
formal selection into `set' teaching groups, both our case study schools
evidence the same common sense understanding of ability. It is an
understanding which is largely assumed, and rarely discussed in any
reflective or detailed way. The following interview transcript is unusual,
therefore, in that the nature of àbility' is thrown into the spotlight. This
happened partly by chance as, during an interview with the headteacher
at Clough GM, a deputy head overheard him state that pupils cannot
òver-achieve':
The New IQism 77
Head: You can't give someone ability can you? (. . .) You can't
achieve more than you're capable of can you? Can you?
There are kids who surprise you but I'm not sure that's quite
the same thing.
Deputy: If you can under-achieve why can't you over-achieve?
Head: What does over-achieve mean? That you've done more
than you're capable of doing? You can't do more than
you're capable of. You can do less than you're capable of,
as most of us do most of the time. Don't we? (. . .) if I sat and
did that test I'm sure I'd do less well than I should do
because I frankly couldn't be bothered to do it because I
don't like doing them, I find it tedious, so I really wouldn't
give it much attention. But I couldn't do better on it. Not
absolutely. I might by freak do better than I should do but
that wouldn't be over-achievement, that would just be a
flaw of the test that it allowed me to randomly achieve
better than I'm really capable of. Statistically it would be
possible for me to guess every answer in that test and come
up with 100 per cent. It's a small percentage possibility but
it is possible. So, but that wouldn't mean I'd over-achieved,
it'd mean that the test is sort of, well the test isn't flawed
but statistically it's a possibility. But I can't do better than I
can do. Can I?0 (. . .)
Deputy: It's semantics. If you guess and you do better than you
should have done you have over-achieved, whether it's by
guessing, depends how you get there.
Head: But I haven't achieved anything really.
Deputy: You've achieved a result in the test.
It is significant that although the deputy challenges the head's refusal

to accept òver-achievement' as a concept, the deputy does not chal-
lenge the view of ability which the head marshals in support of his
claim. The headteachers' perspective, stated with unusual clarity in
this extract, is in fact shared widely among teachers in both schools. It
is a view of ability that has certain vitally important features, each
of which is echoed in government policy. First, ability is seen as
relatively fixed. There is an assumption that those with more or less
àbility' will be similarly distinguished throughout their education.
This assumption is evident in the Government's support for
grouping by ability which separates pupils according to the `speed'
at which they learn. The view is starkly summarized by the head
teacher (above) in his assertion that `You can't give someone abil-
ity. . .'.
Second, in addition to being relatively fixed, it is widely assumed that
àbility' can be measured. Judgements about pupils' ability are made
constantly throughout their school careers, often on the basis of formal
tests and examinations. This process has been taken a stage further
in Clough GM where all pupils entering the school in year 7 are given
a paper and pencil test of `cognitive ability'. This is the test to which
the headteacher refers in the extract quoted above. It is a test purchased
from, and analyzed by, an external agency. Such tests only relate to
a finite range of tasks but within Clough they are seen as accurate
measures of àbility' that can predict likely success and failure in the
future:
we have found them [the tests] helpful as indicators of GCSE perform-

ance, and in that there is some correlation between the standard tests
and the GCSE outcomes.(. . .) So for a significant proportion you
can be confident that the thing is a good predictor of their GCSE
results. (. . .) there will always be a number for whom the correlation
doesn't work, a percentage. But what you don't know is who the
individuals are. That's the nature of the statistical analysis. So for a
significant proportion you can be confident that the thing is a good
predictor of their GCSE results. But some kids will score, on a stand-
ardized basis, 80 and get good results which they shouldn't, and
some kids will score 110 and not get good results and that will
happen.
It is important to pay attention here to the role of the headteacher's

warning that `some kids will score, on a standardized basis, 80 and get
good results which they shouldn't'. This harks back to the point he
makes in the longer extract (in discussion with the deputy) where he
asserts `Statistically it would be possible for me to guess every answer in
that test and come up with 100 per cent. It's a small percentage possibil-
ity but it is possible.' He makes it clear that this is no reason to junk the
test, or alter his belief in its predictive power: `the test isn't flawed but
statistically it's a possibility.' This is vitally important because it provides
a defence against evidence that challenges the predictive power of the
tests and, more fundamentally, the view of àbility' that underlies their
use in Clough GM. Where pupils do not perform in line with their
measured àbility' this can be written off as an anomaly, leaving the
test's wider validity and the concept of àbility' intact: `for a significant
The New IQism 79
proportion you can be confident that the thing is a good predictor of

their GCSE results'.
Ability is seen, therefore, as both fixed and measurable. Finally, it is
frequently seen in terms of a generalized academic potential. This can be
seen in the following statements; first, from the Clough headteacher,
and second, from one of his Faculty heads. The latter is especially
interesting because it shows the routine and common sense way in
which this view of àbility' influences teachers' decisions. In this case
pushing teachers to re assess their own verdict on individual pupils if
there are discrepancies with teachers in other parts of the curriculum:
There's a standard test that kids do when they, we give every kid in
year 7 a standard test. (. . .) And they're indicators of ability, whatever
that means. And obviously indicators of some sort of general ability
rather than just sort of subject specific ability. (. . .) These kind of tests
wouldn't necessarily tell you that someone's really good at art. So you
might get a good result in art. And you might have a particular talent
in those areas where it's that kind of thing. But, you know, even that,
I have to say, is fairly infrequent.
(Head, Clough GM)
when you do your estimated grades you do it isolated. So once you
can get an overall picture of how a kid's performing elsewhere, you
may look at a pupil and think, well he's only ever going to achieve a
level D but then by looking at his other grades and maybe he's picking
up As and Bs in history and English, that can then raise teacher
expectations of the kid. `Cause we're all only human.
(Head of Faculty, Clough GM)
Teachers in both our case study schools shared the same basic under-
standing of àbility' as a fixed, measurable and generalized academic
potential. It is an understanding that is supported by `common sense'
notions of intelligence and enshrined in contemporary education pol-
icy. It is also an understanding that provides a basis for systematic
(though often unwitting) discrimination, especially on the basis of
social class and ethnic origin.
Ability, intelligence and IQism
. . . the IQ test has served as an instrument of oppression against the

poor ± dressed in the trappings of science, rather than politics. The
message of science is heard respectfully, particularly when the tidings

it carries are soothing to the public conscience. There are few more
soothing messages than those historically delivered by the IQ testers.
The poor, the foreign-born, and racial minorities were shown to be
stupid. They were shown to have been born that way. The under-
privileged are today demonstrated to be ineducable, a message as
soothing to the public purse as to the public conscience.
(Kamin 1974, p.15±16)
Leon Kamin's criticism of the historical misuse of ìntelligence' tests is as

valid today as it was when first published more than 25 years ago.
Indeed, the intervening years have seen the periodic fall and rise of
popular IQism in the media, never more dramatically than in the furore
that surrounded Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve
(1994); a monumental tome of some 800±plus pages, which made The
New York Times best-seller list with its claim that `success and failure in
the American economy, and all that goes with it, are increasingly a matter
of the genes that people inherit' (Herrnstein and Murray 1994: 91: original
emphasis). The book generated enormous controversy. On both sides of
the Atlantic it was seized upon by right-wing politicians, columnists and
academics keen to claim a scientific basis for their prejudices (see, for
example, Eysenck 1994; Johnson 1994; Tooley 1995a and b). The book
was soundly and comprehensively de- bunked by numerous critics who
pointed to the pseudo-scientific nature of its claims (Gould 1995), their
inadequate (at times fabricated) evidential basis (Kamin 1999),
their faulty statistics (Drew et al. 1995) and their eugenicist roots (Lane
1999). Even within psychometrics itself, among some who use and
analyze IQ tests, there is clear refutation of the belief that they measure
any kind of innate potential. The Cleary Committee, appointed in the
1970s by the American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific
Affairs, stated that:
A distinction is drawn traditionally between intelligence and

achievement tests. A naive statement of the difference is that the
intelligence test measures capacity to learn and the achievement test
measures what has been learned. But items in all psychological and
educational tests measure acquired behaviour. . .
(quoted in Kamin 1981: 94 emphasis added)
This statement's central proposition, that there is no qualitative dif-

ference between ÌQ' tests, tests of `cognitive ability' and any other test,
The New IQism 81
has been repeated many times since, most recently by Robert J. Stern-
berg, the IBM Professor of Psychology at Yale, in an article entitled
Àbilities are forms of developing expertize':
tests of abilities are no different from conventional tests of achieve-

ment, teacher-made tests administered in school, or assessments of
job performance. Although tests of abilities are used as predictors of
these other kinds of performance, the temporal priority of their
administration should not be confused with some kind of psycholo-
gical priority. . . . There is no qualitative distinction among the vari-
ous kinds of measures. (. . .) The fact that Billy and Jimmy have
different IQs tells us something about differences in what they now
do. It does not tell us anything fixed about what ultimately they will
be able to do.
(Sternberg 1998: 11 and 18)
Sternberg's warning is highly significant. First, it makes explicit the

connection between talk of àbility', IQ tests and intelligence. Although
àbility' features heavily in teachertalk and education policy, the term
ìntelligence' does not: undoubtedly this is because of the past contro-
versies about the vacuous and dangerous nature of most claims made in
the name of IQ testing.12
This is not to suggest that everyone who uses the word àbility' is
consciously substituting it for a more controversial alternative. We
believe that most teachers, certainly a majority of those we have worked
with, would reject the excesses of the IQ lobby and would distance
themselves from works such as The Bell Curve. The greatest danger in
current uses of the word àbility' is that it acts as an unrecognized version
of ìntelligence' and ÌQ'. If we were to substitute ÌQ' for àbility' many
alarm bells would ring which currently remain silent because àbility' acts
as an untainted yet powerful reconstitution of all the beliefs previously
wrapped up in terms such as ìntelligence', ÌQ' and, in earlier decades
of the twentieth century, `superior/inferior blood', `feeblemindedness'
and `normal/abnormal' (see Selden 1999).
This leads to a second reason why Sternberg's intervention is so
timely. Not only does it make explicit the connection between talk of
àbility' and intelligence, but it firmly places all tests of such qualities in
the same category: as measures of learnt skills. Sternberg emphasizes
that whatever term is used and however the test is constructed, all such
tests measure acquired behaviour ± they are tests of what has been learnt
so far, not an indicator of what can be learnt in the future. These are vital
points because they challenge key fictions at the heart of contemporary

discourses about àbility'. Whether the term is used by politicians, aca-
demics, teachers or pupils we should beware of the hidden slippage of
meaning that usually occurs. To say that a pupil is `more' or `less' able
should only be taken as a verdict on their past performance; that such a
statement often labels individuals as somehow inherently destined for
relatively high or low achievement reveals the extent to which the
pseudo- scientific IQism of Jensen, Herrnstein and company has pene-
trated `common sense'.
The dangers involved in this common sense notion of àbility' should
now be clear. Talk of àbility' repackages the old and discredited IQism.
Sadly, the consequences of this situation have been predictably negative
for those social groups that have typically borne the brunt of past
inequalities, especially those marked by social class and minority ethnic
heritage.13
`Race', class and ability
During our two years of fieldwork in Taylor and Clough we were struck
by how teachers' notions of àbility' seemed to reflect judgements about
the nature of particular social groups. We began to feel that working
class pupils and those of African- Caribbean heritage (often regardless of
their social class background) face a particular hurdle in convincing
teachers that they have àbility'. Only rarely do teachers draw a direct
connection between àbility' and a pupil's class or ethnicity, but such a
connection seems to be operating tacitly in the ways that certain pupils
are perceived as lacking in effort or the necessary skills to achieve.
We have already noted that àbility' itself is rarely interrogated or
challenged; àbility' is something that teachers infer from a range of
markers or cues. Some of these are quantitative (such as test scores) but it
is also clear that social class and ethnicity can also act as powerful
markers of àbility'. In Clough GM, for example, many teachers com-
plain that the school's ùnbalanced' intake means that they are disad-
vantaged in the school league tables. This lack of `balance' is not simply
related to tests of prior attainment but also to the social class composi-
tion of the school. The fact that the school's intake is overwhelming
working class is interpreted by some teachers as necessarily skewing its
achievement to the low end. As the headteacher explains:
it's no coincidence that year-after-year certain schools are at the top

of the table and certain schools are at the bottom. It's purely down,
The New IQism 83
not purely but it's largely, principally due to the nature of the intake. So
year-after-year [particular local schools] are at the top of the table,
[other local schools] are at the bottom (. . .) we're just above the
bottom.
(Headteacher, Clough GM)
The class specific nature of these beliefs is made explicit in the follow-
ing comments from a Head of Faculty:
Our main intake, you know, (. . .) feeder schools are on the [local
council] estate and we are looking at lots of kids who are coming
from families where the parents have never worked, you know, there
are no wage earners in the family, they're on Social Security. They do
not have the expectations for their kids from education that your
`middle class' or your upwardly mobile working class parents are
going to have for their kids, you know. (. . .) We are weighted down
the lower end, unfortunately, because we are a working class school.
(Acting head of Faculty, Clough GM)
In this way the social class composition of the school is seen as causally,
and inevitably, linked to the level of achievement that can be attained.
Àbility' here takes on additional dimensions, including parental expecta-
tions and pupil motivation, but the relatively fixed and generalized
nature of the problem is clear: it's `because we are a working class
school'.
Pupils in both Taylor Comprehensive and Clough GM complain that
certain peers are favoured over others. The issues that are most fre-
quently cited in relation to teacher treatment are àbility', àttitude/
behaviour' and `race'. The first two categories are suffused with notions
of social class although the links are not always made directly. For
example, many pupils say that `clever', middle class and favoured pupils
receive much lighter punishments than themselves (or even no punish-
ment at all) for minor disciplinary issues such as lateness, forgotten
equipment or chewing gum. Furthermore, it is felt that these favoured
pupils are allowed to speak to teachers in a way that is not tolerated from
other pupils: `they're rather cheeky but in a posh way, cheeky to the
tutor but in a posh way, and their work's good.' (Lisa, Taylor Comprehens-
ive, year 9)
Similarly, pupils' complain that `race' has a negative impact on
teachers' expectations but find it hard to point to conclusive evidence
or blatant acts of discrimination: Ìt's not blatantly there. I mean, you
can't, you wouldn't be able to just walk in the school and say Òh the
school's racist'. You have to take time before you knew that.' (Marcella,
an African-Caribbean pupil in Taylor Comprehensive, year 9) In talking
about racism in their schools, many pupils (especially those of African-
Caribbean and dual heritage) were convinced that minority ethnic
pupils were not given fair treatment. To substantiate these feelings
they pointed to numerous individual acts, especially concerning
teachers' differential punishment of certain individuals. They found it
harder to make a concrete connection to how this would impact on
their studies but they were certain of its negative influence:
Jason (African-Caribbean): Some of the classes are sexist or racist.

Researcher : How do they show that?
Kofi (African-Caribbean): How they don't pick you [to answer
in class], they pick on, like, particular
people. Like you can put your hand
up and they'll always pick the person
next to you, the person on the side,
the opposite side, they never pick
you. (Clough GM, year 9)
Marcella (African-Caribbean): I mean sometimes Molly [white mem-

ber of the friendship group] is so rude
to her [the teacher], I mean. This is
another thing with racism, and I
wouldn't be able to do that because
she'd just like refer me [sending the
pupil to another room] or. . . . Yeah, or
give me to [a senior teacher] (. . .)
Researcher : Does any of this kind of translate into
the classroom when you are learning,
or supposed to be learning?
Marcella: Sometimes I suppose, not all the time.
Juliette (mixed race): If you're being picked on by a teacher
then you'll suffer, your work will suf-
fer.
Marcella: Mr (. . .) is the worst, he's always pick-
ing on me and Jasmine. (. . .) I had this
teacher called Hatchett and he didn't
like me. And one time I went home
and I told my mum and she said,
The New IQism 85
`Could you ever think that he would

put down your grades because he
doesn't like you?' I said, `This man
seriously doesn't like me'.
(Taylor Comprehensive, year 9)
We observed many occasions when Black pupils seemed to be dealt

with more harshly or to face lower expectations than their peers of other
ethnic backgrounds: a finding in common with almost all previous eth-
nographies of multi-ethnic schools (see Bhatti 1999; Connolly 1998;
Gillborn 1990; Green 1983; Mac an Ghaill 1988; Mirza 1992; Nehaul
1996; Sewell 1997; Wright 1986, 1992). Only rarely, however, did tea-
chers' make explicit reference to ethnicity and ability in the same con-
text. When this did occur the incidents supported the view that teachers'
judgements of àbility' were indeed linked with negative expectations
about certain groups, especially African-Caribbean young people:
I found that quite strange that the kids had their estimated grades
because they then came back at you and gave you earache, you know,
would challenge you in the corridor and so you were under threat.
You know, `why have you only given me that grade', you know?
Because kids, you know, have different perceptions of themselves,
they have no understanding, you know, and some of them live in
cloud cuckoo land. I mean we've got, we had a whole period where
we had Afro-Caribbean kids running around with gold rimmed
glasses on with plain glass in them because they thought it made
them look more intelligent, you know, they really had highly inflated
opinions of themselves as far as academic achievement, and this is
fact. I mean there were a whole group of kids that put on glasses and
wandered round the corridors with gold rimmed glasses on because
they really felt that they were sort of A/B . . .
(a Faculty head, Clough GM)
On the basis of this teacher's account it is clearly impossible to discern

whether Black pupils were wearing non-prescription glasses and, if they
where, what their motivations for doing so might have been. Nor is this
quotation irrefutable evidence that this or any other teacher was
actively or unwittingly making poorer predictions for Black pupils
than for their peers from other ethnic groups. Nevertheless, this account
does give a worrying insight into several relevant issues. It shows quite
clearly, for example, that this teacher recognizes that the predicted
grades are important to pupils but that he is dismissive of their protests

that the estimates are too low: `kids, you know, have different percep-
tions of themselves, they have no understanding.' The quotation seems
especially dismissive of protests by Black pupils: `they really had highly
inflated opinions of themselves as far as academic achievement'.
Furthermore, it is noticeable that the pupils' concerns (which could
have been interpreted as a sign of motivation, a thirst for achievement
and success) are experienced negatively as `challenge' and `threat'. There
is a strong echo with previous research that has suggested teachers'
readiness to impute a challenge into the actions of Black pupils (cf.
Gillborn 1990; Gillborn and Gipps 1996; Sewell 1997, 1998; Wright
1992).
Ability, selection and the rationing of education
In the previous sections we have identified several key factors in the

ways that àbility' is currently conceptualized. First, we have seen that
àbility' is commonly viewed as a relatively fixed, measurable and gen-
eralized academic potential. This echoes the most crude and regressive
notions of ìntelligence' but reconstitutes them in a more acceptable
discursive package. Second, we have shown that there is evidence, from
our own study and in previous work, to suggest that teachers sometimes
view ability as unevenly distributed between social groups. Furthermore,
these beliefs operate to the distinct disadvantage of working-class and
Black young people. A final element in this potentially devastating
equation is supplied by the increased use of selection within secondary
schools: this provides a mechanism by which numerous, often ill-
defined and even unrecognized differences in teacher expectations can
be given concrete existence through their institutionalization within
the organization of teaching groups and, in some cases, the placing of
literally impenetrable limits on the exam grades that are available.
Although there are no definitive statistics on the picture nationally it
is widely believed that selection `by ability' in general, and in particular
the use of setting, has become more widespread since the major educa-
tion reforms began in the late 1980s. Research consistently indicates
that selection into separate teaching groups does not deliver a net
improvement in attainment but does lead to disenchantment among
pupils in lower groups and acts to reinforce social and minority ethnic
disadvantage (for reviews see Gillborn 1997; Hatcher 1997; Hallam and
Toutounji 1996; Sukhnandan and Lee 1998). Nevertheless, many
teachers believe that selection will enhance the performance of some
The New IQism 87
pupils and, as we have already seen, the policy has been explicitly
supported by the Labour government. Inspection reports by the Office
for Standards in Education (Ofsted) indicate an increase in the use of
setting in secondary schools in the late 1990s (Budge 1998) and recent
research suggests that primary schools are increasingly adopting setting,
especially in mathematics and English (Hallam 1999).
Both Taylor Comprehensive and Clough GM have increasingly turned
to the use of internal selection in a bid to raise their profile in the school
performance tables. We noted earlier that the schools have a markedly
different ethos in relation to selection: Clough GM views selection
(on entry and internally) as a key improvement strategy, while
Taylor Comprehensive is committed to retaining mixed ability teaching.
Nevertheless, both schools have increasingly adopted setting, especially
in Key Stage 4. Additionally, both schools use the subject options
process in year 9 as a form of hidden selection and they have developed
a range of what might be termed `D±to±C conversion strategies'; that
is special initiatives that identify supposedly `borderline' pupils
and offer them additional support and teacher time. In Clough, where
the ethos strongly supports selection, setting and other forms of ability
grouping are used from year 7 onwards and strategies in Key Stage 4
even include the use of a pupil league table ± publicly ranking
pupils according to their predicted GCSE performance (see Gillborn
and Youdell 2000).
Finally, in a piece of selection that receives little academic attention
and almost no media coverage, all secondary schools are now required
to select pupils to `tiered' examinations in a majority of GCSE subjects.
The late 1990s saw a change in many GCSE examination courses which
require teachers to decide the àppropriate' level of entry for each pupil.
The decisions are viewed with trepidation by many teachers and are
vitally important for pupils because they can place an impenetrable
ceiling on the grades that they can attain. Figure 4.6 illustrates
the tiering models currently in operation. Pupils are entered in a parti-
cular tier and can only attain the grades associated with that level. In the
two-tier model, for example, pupils in the Higher Tier can attain grades
A* through D: a pupil performing below the level required for a grade
D will usually be given a U (Ungraded) result. Tiering means that a
pupil placed in the Foundation Tier cannot attain the highest grades
(A*±B). Worse still, in mathematics (where a three-tier model
applies) Foundation pupils cannot attain a C grade ± taken as the basic
requirement by many and given a crucial weight in job and education
marketplaces.
Two Three
Tiers Tiers
A A
A A
B B B
C C C C
D D D
D
E E E
F F
G G
Key
Higher Tier
Intermediate Tier
Foundation Tier
Figure 4.6 GCSE tiering models (1998 and 1999)
The increasing use of selection lends institutional weight to differen-

tial teacher expectations about the àbility' of various pupils. It is our
contention that these processes are effectively leading to the rationing
of educational opportunity.
Education as triage
triage, n. of action f. trier to pick, cull . . . 1. The action of assorting

according to quality. . . 2. The assignment of degrees of urgency to
wounds or illness in order to decide the order of suitability of treat-
ment.
(Oxford English Dictionary)
In a medical crisis triage is the name used to describe attempts to direct

attention to those people who might survive if their needs are given
The New IQism 89
immediate attention. Other categories of patient are required to wait:

some patients will have less pressing needs and can safely be left; other
less hopeful cases have needs so great that they are judged unlikely to
survive even if prioritized. A similar approach is being adopted in Taylor
Comprehensive and Clough GM. Teachers are engaged in a series of
activities that seek to identify `borderline' pupils, that is those expected
to only narrowly miss the five A±to±C barrier. By emphasizing the needs
of such pupils, it is reasoned, the greatest impact can be made on the
schools' league table position. Consequently the needs of other pupils,
be they `safe' or `without hope', are given less attention. In this way
educational triage is acting systematically to neglect certain pupils while
directing additional resources to those deemed most likely to benefit (in
terms of the externally judged standards). These strategies seek to max-
imize the effectiveness of scarce resources but their effect, in practice, is
to privilege particular groups of pupils. The process is represented sche-
matically in Figure 4.7.
Schools are responding to the A±to±C economy by emphasizing the
needs of particular groups of pupils over others. Àble' students are
generally placed in higher sets with greater resources and the most
experienced teachers. Those deemed to have àbility' but not attaining
the predicted levels are identified and subject to a range of `D±to±C
conversion strategies', including mentoring by senior teachers and the
possibility of additional lessons. These developments are not uniformly
welcomed by teachers, and there is some resistance, but in the main
Pupils
(patients)
Triage
Safe Under-achievers Without hope

(non-urgent cases) (suitable cases for (hopeless cases)
treatment)
Figure 4.7 Educational triage: the rationing of educational opportunity

they are seen as unavoidably pragmatic moves in the face of the

league table requirement to deliver year-on-year improvements in the
proportion of pupils attaining five or more higher grade passes.14 In all
of this the discourse is framed in terms of àbility'; hence the differential
distribution of resources (such as teacher time, support and effort) is
presented as socially just in meritocratic terms. In practice, however, the
processes are exclusionary and embody assumptions that further
entrench and extend `race' and class inequalities.
In both Taylor Comprehensive and Clough GM working-class pupils
(especially those in receipt of free school meals) and their peers of
African-Caribbean heritage (regardless of social class) are less likely to
be viewed as àble'. In contrast, these pupils are much more likely to be
viewed as disruptive, as lacking in motivation and as the product of a
home and/or community culture that does not support education. For
example, in both schools, Black pupils and their white peers in receipt of
free school meals (FSM) are significantly more likely to be placed in
Foundation Tier examinations and less likely to be placed in the Higher
Tier. This is just part of a wider process of labelling and the rationing of
opportunity that works through the routine operation of stereotypes at
the classroom level. In isolation such beliefs and practices can seem
trivial or of limited importance. As we noted earlier, for example,
many pupils are convinced that racism is at work in their schools but
it is not easily identified in crude acts; in Marcella's words, ìt's not
blatant'. It is only when viewed cumulatively, at the end of the pupils'
secondary education, that the devastating effects of these processes
come clearly into focus.
Overall levels of GCSE attainment are higher in Taylor Comprehens-
ive (despite the schools' commitment to mixed ability teaching which
the government views as less desirable at this stage). However, the
patterns of achievement between different social groups ± the educa-
tional winners and losers ± are largely the same in both schools (see
Figures 4.8 and 4.9). In relation to pupils who attained at least five higher
grade GCSE passes (the defining criterion of the A±to±C economy), in
both schools the patterns of achievement reflect inequalities by gender,
social class and ethnicity. Boys are less likely to attain the five A±to±C
benchmark than girls, but the scale of the attainment inequality in
relation to gender is significantly less pronounced than the inequalities
by `race' and class. In both case study schools white pupils are around
twice as likely to attain the benchmark than their African-Caribbean
peers. In Taylor the attainment inequality between FSM and non-FSM
pupils is a little less pronounced but in Clough GM, where selection is
The New IQism 91
40%
35%
30%
25% Non-FSM
(39%)
Girls
20% (40%)
White
(35%)
15%
Boys
10% (25%)
Black
(16%)
5% FSM
(9%)
0%
Ethnic Origin Class Gender
Figure 4.8 Five or more `higher grade' GCSE passes by gender, class and ethnic
origin (Clough GM)
60%
50%
Non-FSM Girls
(53%) (52%)
40%
White
30% (47%)
Boys
(41%)
20% FSM
(30%)
Black
(24%)
10%
0%
Figure 4.9 Five or more `higher grade' GCSE passes by gender, class and ethnic
origin (Taylor Comprehensive)
most intensive, the class inequality is the greatest of all: here non-FSM
pupils are four times more likely to attain the benchmark than their
peers in receipt of free meals.15
These inequalities in attainment are highly significant. However, an
even more distressing picture is revealed if we interrogate the statistics
further. Not all GCSE subjects carry equal status in the eyes of potential
employers and in terms of college and university admissions. It is not
possible to grade all subjects by their relative status but a simple (yet
meaningful) criterion is whether pupils attain higher grade passes in
each of the three `core' subjects in the National Curriculum (mathe-
matics, science and English). Since the National Curriculum was first
introduced these subjects have enjoyed special status, including guar-
anteed curriculum time. Furthermore it is known that many employers
(and some HE institutions) view higher grades in some or all of these
subjects as a prerequisite ± functioning as a further selection device that
limits the number of applicants they have to consider. As can be seen in
Figures 4.10 and 4.11, the attainment inequalities become even more
pronounced in relation to this measure.
Once again, although the gender inequalities are in the predicted
direction they are not as great as those associated with `race' and social
class. In Clough GM no pupil in receipt of free meals attained five or
20%
18% Girls
(20%)
16% White
(18%) Non-FSM
14% (19%)
12%
10%
8%
6% Boys
(10%)
4%
Black
2% (4%) FSM
(0%)
0%
Figure 4.10 Pupils attaining at least five `higher grade' GCSE passes that include
maths, science and English Language (Clough GM)
The New IQism 93
40%
35%
30%
White
25% (37%)
Girls
20% Non-FSM (27%)
(29%)
15%
Boys
(21%)
10%
FSM
(12%)
5%
Black (0%)
0%
Figure 4.11 Pupils attaining at least five `higher grade' GCSE passes that include
maths, science and English Language (Taylor Comprehensive)
more higher grade passes including the core subjects: around one in five
non-FSM pupils attained this level. The situation is a little better in
Taylor Comprehensive but here too the inequality is clear: non-FSM
pupils in Taylor are twice as likely to attain five higher grades including
the core subjects. In Clough white pupils are about four times more
likely to achieve five higher grades including the core subjects; in Taylor
not a single African-Caribbean pupil attained this level of success
compared with almost four-in-ten of their White counterparts.
Conclusions
After two-years research in Clough GM and Taylor Comprehensive one

of our most striking findings is just how few people (teachers and pupils)
seem to be comfortable with the present state of the schooling. Teachers,
from the most experienced and senior members of staff through to the
most junior newcomers, feel pressured to perform in relation to targets
and surveillant systems that are beyond their control. Their discomfort,
however, is as nothing compared to the costs borne by some of their
pupils. All of them, teachers and pupils, experience a schooling process
that is increasingly dictated by external performance measures; in trying
to survive that process, familiar social divisions (especially by `race' and
class) are being reworked and further entrenched through a discourse

that stresses individual àbility' but seems actually to revolve around
group identities and stereotypes.
The A±to±C economy has touched every aspect of schooling in Taylor
and Clough; it is an economy that sprung from the Conservative educa-
tion reforms begun under Margaret Thatcher and it continues even
more powerfully under Tony Blair's `new' Labour administration. This
is not to deny that Labour have made significant changes. Blair has
made `social inclusion' a key part of the Government's stated agenda
and equal opportunity (for so long derided under Conservative govern-
ments) is once again viewed as a legitimate policy aim. Unfortunately,
these changes have traded on a narrow and superficial understanding of
social justice and have not provided a springboard for genuinely egalit-
arian policy (see Demaine 1999; Gillborn 1999; Hatcher 1998; Whitty
1998). Labour's interpretation of `standards' has been no more sophistic-
ated than the Tories' and the publication of school league tables is a
taken-for-granted part of national policy.
We began this paper by examining the patterns of growing educa-
tional inequality that characterize the period of reform that started in
the late 1980s; we have used our qualitative data on life in Taylor
Comprehensive and Clough GM to get behind the statistics in an effort
to understand the processes that are producing these inequalities.
Despite their many differences, Taylor and Clough share a perception
of the À±to±C economy' and their role within it. As a direct result of
these perceptions both schools have moved to select pupils earlier, more
intensively and with greater finality than at any time in their recent
history. Clough GM seizes the opportunity, viewing selection (internally
and at the point of entry) as a major improvement strategy; Taylor seeks
to maintain its commitment to mixed ability teaching but nevertheless
sets `by ability' in some subjects and increasingly segregates children as
they move into their GCSE courses. Partly this is a consequence of the
GCSE exams themselves, which force schools to tier children ± closing
down opportunities and lending institutional weight to differential
teacher expectations. In both schools there is a rationing of educational
opportunity, never clearer than in the D±to±C conversion strategies
adopted as a final desperate attempt to lever up `success' in the league
tables at the cost of judging some pupils (disproportionately Black and
working-class young people) as without hope. The schools do not set out
deliberately to fail particular groups but, in the face of the A±to±C
economy, they must find some way of deciding where best to focus
their limited resources. This is educational triage and the decisions are
The New IQism 95
based on judgements of àbility'. But àbility' is a loaded, fallacious and

highly dangerous concept. Àbility' offers a supposedly fair means for
condemning some children to second class educations: it is a discourse
that characterizes national educational policy, draws on common sense
prejudices and misconceptions, and acts to legitimate the systematic
failing of Black and working-class young people. This is the constella-
tion of forces we describe as `the new IQism'.
We have noted the periodic fall and rise of debates about supposedly
inevitable hereditary differences in educability. The most recent epi-
sode, sparked by Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve (1994), was
typical in the pseudo-scientific guise that the IQist lobby sought to
construct around a familiar conservative anti-welfare and elitist mes-
sage. The book provided an opportunity (on both sides of the Atlantic)
for èxperts' and other commentators to re-assert the inevitability, and
indeed the justice, of inequality. Arguing simply that people are in
poverty because of their own intellectual (genetically-based) shortcom-
ings, the book became part of a wider discourse that attacks any liberal
compensatory programme as futile and anti-democratic. It is an
approach that is anti-working class, disablist, sexist, and racist:
A man's IQ predicted whether he described himself as disabled better than

the kinds of job he had held. We do not know why intelligence and physical
problems are so closely related, but one possibility is that less intelligent
people are more accident prone.
(Herrnstein and Murray 1994: 155, original emphasis)
At lower educational levels, a woman's intelligence best predicts whether
she will bear an illegitimate child.
(ibid. 167, original emphasis)
ethnic differences in cognitive ability are neither surprising nor in
doubt. . . . the average white person tests higher than about 84 percent of
the population of blacks . . .
(ibid. 269, original emphasis)
These kinds of perspective are repugnant to many people. Teachers,

although not versed in the detail of the `nature versus nurture' debates
over IQ and heredity, are often aware of past controversies where testing
has been found to discriminate against particular groups. Additionally,
many working in the British system remember (having experienced it as
pupils and/or professionals) the selective tripartite system that domin-
ated after the Second World War; a system based on the hereditarian
perspectives of Sir Cyril Burt16 and ultimately abandoned in most LEAs
because of its obvious inequities. Finally, of course, anyone even re-

motely aware of 20th century history needs little reminding of the
atrocities carried out in the name of genetic superiority.17 These events
are part of the reason for the furore that justifiably surrounds public
interventions by those in the hereditarian camp. And yet our data
suggest that, in one sense at least, the hereditarians have already won.
Without any genuine debate the British education system is increasingly
returning to policy and practice that takes for granted the assumptions pro-
posed by IQists like Herrnstein and Murray.
The hereditarian view of intelligence as à matter of the genes that
people inherit' (Herrnstein and Murray 1994: 91) is certainly not pro-
posed as an explicit element in most policy discourse and, boldly stated
(as above), we imagine that many (most?) teachers would reject such a
perspective as abhorrent. However, exactly the same principles that
underlie the IQist position are embraced and enacted within the detail
of contemporary education policy and practice in Britain. We are not
arguing that policymakers and teachers consciously accept the heredit-
arian position but that they behave as if they do. This is the new IQism, a
situation where hereditarian assumptions (and all the concomitant inequal-
ities of opportunity that they produce and legitimate) are coded and enacted
through the discourse of àbility'.
Hence, education policy asserts that `Children are not all of the same
ability, nor do they learn at the same speed' and uses this as the rationale
for an extension in the use of `setting by ability', so as to `maximize
progress, for the benefit of high fliers and slower learners alike' (Labour
Party Manifesto 1997: 7)(see above). We have shown that both Clough
GM and Taylor Comprehensive work with a view of àbility' as a fixed
and generalized intellectual potential: echoing the IQists' notion of
ìntelligence' (cf. Herrnstein and Murray 1994: 19±24). We have shown
also that this view of ability underlies multiple and complex selections
that separate out the àble' and the `less-able' within the schools: some
decisions are explicit (such as the creation of separate `sets'); some are
camouflaged as advice on àppropriate' courses (for example during
òptions' processes and tiering decisions); others are a mixture of public
and private (including various D±to±C conversion strategies). Regardless
of the form taken, however, these decisions have a clear and discrimin-
atory effect. Our data show that Black pupils and their peers in receipt of
free school meals are considerably more likely to be judged as lacking
àbility' and, therefore, find themselves in the lower sets, entered for the
lowest tier of examination, and judged least worthy of additional sup-
port through the rationing of education in the A±to±C economy.
The New IQism 97
The new IQism informs, and is in turn strengthened by, contemporary

policy and practice. The view of àbility' that currently dominates education,
from the heart of government through to individual classrooms, represents a
victory for the hereditarian position without debate and without conscience. At
the school level this IQist notion of ability provides an opportunity for
teachers (and especially senior management) to identify the winners
and losers at the earliest possible stage, allowing continual checks to
insure that those predicted success `fulfil' their potential. This perspect-
ive, and the decisions it supports, are serviced by a testing industry only
too happy to sell schools what they want to hear.18
Gross inequalities of attainment and opportunity currently character-
ize the British education system. These inequalities have grown as the
A±to±C economy provides the impetus for schools to pursue
increasingly frequent and final forms of internal selection. The notions
of àbility', that inform such decisions, are powerful and dangerous.
Unless policymakers and practitioners (at all levels) challenge these
common sense fictions about intelligence and ability, the future is likely
to hold even greater inequalities.
Notes
1. The reforms were enacted by British governments but do not always include
each member state of the United Kingdom; the most far reaching changes
have been felt in England and, since that is where our qualitative data were
collected, in this chapter we focus mainly on the English case.
2. The term `quasi-market' has been preferred by some (see Whitty 1997) because,
despite the many reforms, the situation is still some way from the model
proposed in a purely `free market'. For example, parents are free only to express
a `preference' for a certain school (they have no guarantee of access) and the
state remains both a major provider and regulator of education.
3. Schools identified as `failing' face a series of requirements and re-inspection
that can lead, ultimately, to closure.
4. We prefer the term àttainment inequality' to the more common notion of
ùnder-achievement' because of problems of labelling and misinterpretation
associated with the latter term. For a discussion of these problems see Gillborn
and Gipps (1996) and Mirza (1992).
5. Our thanks to Sean Demack, David Drew and Mike Grimsley for generously
granting permission to reproduce their findings.
6. We gratefully acknowledge the funding made available for this project by the
Nuffield Foundation.
7. For more detail on the schools, the pupil sample and the research techniques,
see Gillborn and Youdell (2000).
8. The special significance of five higher grades reflects their past use in England
as a means of selection to the professions and Higher Education, where five
higher grades has traditionally operated as a basic cut-off point below which
candidates are not considered (see Drew et al. 1992; Goacher 1984).
9. In everyday language, in school and the media, people commonly refer to
higher grades as À±to±C', adopting a shorthand that ignores the starred A
grade (A*). We mirror this in describing the situation as the À±to±C eco-
nomy' although, of course, A* grades are included in all relevant calculations.
10. In relation to the controversy surrounding Jensen's hereditarian claims in
late 1960s and early 1970s (see Jensen 1969), Samuel Bowles and Herbert
Gintis (1976) use the phase ÌQism' to describe the theory of social inequality
that locates the causes for poverty in the genetic and, particularly, the intel-
lectual make-up of people (both individually and as a group).
11. For a more detailed critique of Labour's approach to issues of selection and
equity see Gillborn (1998a), Hatcher (1998) and Whitty (1999).
12. Significantly, Herrnstein and Murray themselves use a variety of terms in
addition to intelligence (especially `cognitive ability') because `the word
intelligence carries with it undue affect and political baggage' (Herrnstein
and Murray 1994: 22. original emphasis).
13. Interestingly, gender dynamics have not worked out so predictably. The
widespread panic about `boy's underachievement' has actually worked to
raise teachers' expectations about `girls' ability'. However, this has not meant
that girls uniformly benefit from teachers' expectations ± indeed, we found
considerable evidence of negative stereotyping (see Gillborn and Youdell
2000).
14. See Gillborn and Youdell (2000) for detailed accounts of the various perspect-
ives adopted by teachers in the two case study schools and a critique of the
role of pragmatism in the discourses and processes.
15. Because of the relatively small numbers involved it is not sensible to carry out
numerous cross-tabulations, such as controlling for class and ethnicity
together. However, it should be noted that the proportion of FSM pupils
was not significantly different between the ethnic groups in the study and
so the Black/White attainment inequality should not be dismissed as an
artefact of social class.
16. Cyril Burt was the leading British hereditarian psychologist, knighted for his
services to education, whose ideas exercised considerable influence over the
shape of the selective post war education system. In the early 1970s Leon
Kamin raised serious doubt over the authenticity of Burt's work, noting that
in view of his published sample descriptions, the statistical correlations
claimed by Burt were literally incredible (Kamin 1974). The issue made
front page headlines (after Burt's death) when Oliver Gillie, of the Sunday
Times, discovered that two `research associates' who had supposedly gathered
the data for some of Burt's most famous work had, in all likelihood, never
existed. Initially the charge of fraud was vehemently defended by Burt's
supporters, such as Hans Eysenck, who complained of `character assassina-
tion'. Later, however, Burt's authorized biographer (Leslie Hearnshaw)
unearthed further evidence and Burt's supporters began to accept publicly
that he had behaved ìn a dishonest manner' (for an account see Kamin 1981:
98±105). The late 1980s, however, witnessed an attempt to rehabilitate Burt's
reputation (Joynson 1989) every bit as flawed and selective in its evidence
as was Burt himself (cf. Hearnshaw 1990). Nevertheless, the attempt to
The New IQism 99
reconstruct Burt as victim rather than fraud was partially successful.

Reviewing the Joynson book for the Guardian newspaper, for example,
Clare Burstall (then director of the National Foundation for Educational
Research) declared `Burt stands exonerated'. A conclusion that she reached
with obvious relief, Ì found it impossible to accept anyone who could write
as Burt did, and who had for so long, and with such obvious justification,
been held in such high esteem by so many of his contemporaries, could
possibly be the confidence-trickster, liar and fraud that he was now being
made out to be'.
17. Eugenic ideology was by no means limited to Nazi Germany. In Britain and
the United States many prominent politicians viewed unchecked `breeding'
with alarm. For a revealing history of Eugenics in the US see Selden (1999).
18. The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), for example,
currently markets a test on the basis that GCSE outcomes can be reliably
predicted across the range of pupil backgrounds as early as year 7. See Gill-
born and Youdell (2000) chapter 3, for a detailed critique of these claims and
the assumptions they embody.
5
New Teachers and the
Question of Ethnicity
Christine Skelton, Fay Smith, Richard Tomlin and Jack Demaine
During the 20 years since the publication of the Rampton Report (1981)
concern has been voiced about the under representation of minority
ethnic groups in teaching in England and Wales, and their relative lack
of opportunities for career advancement. The Commission for Racial
Equality (CRE) has lobbied for policy interventions to address the issue
and in the mid 1980s carried out a survey of staffing in eight local
authorities that had `higher than average' minority populations. This
revealed that less than three per cent of teachers came from minority
ethnic backgrounds and also showed that such teachers were dispropor-
tionately concentrated on lower pay scales (CRE 1986, 1988). By 1992
the CRE was urging the Conservative government to take appropriate
steps `to ensure that people from the ethnic minorities will be recruited
for teacher training without unlawful discrimination' (cited in Osler
1997, p.47). Subsequently, the Higher Education Funding Council
responded by funding 17 projects to widen ethnic minority participa-
tion in initial teacher training between 1993 and 1994 (HEFC 1995).
In October 1997 the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) and the CRE
launched a series of regional conferences addressing the theme `Teaching
in Multi-ethnic Britain'. This initiative to boost minority recruitment was
compatible with the newly-elected Labour government's commitment to
the principle of social inclusion, articulated three months earlier in the
White Paper, Excellence in Schools (Department for Education and
Employment 1997). The subsequent Green Paper, Teachers: Meeting
the Challenge of Change (DfEE 1998) declared that `Teaching must
attract recruits from every section of society, bring strengths and qualities
which ensure that teaching is a vibrant and diverse profession.' The paper
100
New Teachers and Ethnicity 101
went on to announce that the TTA would be asking all training providers
`to set targets for the number of ethnic minority trainees to whom they
offer places' (DfEE 1998, p.46).
Osler (1997), Jones, Maguire and Watson (1997) and Siraj-Blatchford
(1991) provide invaluable insights into the careers of minority ethnic
teachers and their experiences during training. But relatively little has
been written about teacher trainers and the issue of ethnicity, or about
the strategies deployed in the recruitment and retention of minority
ethnic student teachers. The research reported in this chapter is one
strand of an ongoing investigation (begun in 1998) into the motivations
and experiences of minority ethnic students from the start of their
initial teacher training on Postgraduate Certificate in Education
(PGCE) courses through to their first teaching posts. The research invest-
igates the practices of a group of teacher training institutions that have
been particularly successful in recruiting minority ethnic students.
Briefly, the first stage of the project involved a postal survey of all those
identifying their origins in ethnic minority groups on their Graduate
Teacher Training Registry (GTTR) application forms for the PGCE. The
second strand of the project, which is the one reported in this chapter,
involved interviews with admissions tutors, course directors and other
senior staff at teacher training institutions. A third strand involved inter-
viewing students about their experiences towards the end of their train-
ing course. Finally, a postal survey and follow-up interviews were carried
out during the first year of full-time teaching. Of course, the authors of
this chapter have long been aware of the methodological difficulties
associated with this kind of research and with the use of conventional
ethnic group categorization (see for example, Demaine 1989, Mason
1990 and Bird 1996). In order to proceed in these early stages of the
research we had to make use of òfficial' categories. On balance, we
consider the research worthwhile despite the limitations.
The scope of the research
The role of `gatekeepers' is regarded as significant to recruitment to

many occupations, and teaching is no exception, although it must be
borne in mind that there are strict requirements laid down by the TTA
which admissions tutors in teacher training institutions are not at lib-
erty to ignore. Rather than concerning ourselves with these more or less
`fixed' requirements, our research focused on `positive' features that
admissions tutors might regard as `good practice' in encouraging recruit-
ment. We followed this line of enquiry in the hope of making a positive
contribution to minority ethnic recruitment to teaching. To this end, a

series of interviews (with individuals and groups) was undertaken with
admissions tutors, course directors and other teacher training staff in 15
English universities and an institution providing School Centred Initial
Teacher Training (SCITT).
We provided written details of the scope and purposes of our research
prior to the interviews and we gave formal assurances that appropriate
steps would be taken to maintain both individual and institutional
anonymity. A list of questions, providing a basis for discussion, was
sent in advance of the interviews. The following questions were
explored: what do you perceive to be the major constraints upon ethnic
minority recruitment to, and completion of, PGCEs?; to what extent do
your admissions and selection procedures take account of ethnicity?;
what special steps, if any, does your institution take to attract ethnic
minority teacher-trainees?; to what extent do issues relating to ethnicity
feature in your staff training schemes and mentor development
programmes?; what strategies do you employ to support ethnic
minority students during training?; how are the data supplied by the
GTTR utilized by your institution? The interviews were conducted
between July and December 1998.
A coding frame was devised on the basis of participants' responses to
the core questions in the interview schedule described above. This
allowed us to compare and contrast institutional differences across the
former `binary divide' (that is between pre- and post-1992 universities)
and also to explore the impact of geographical variations on policy and
practice. The results were then compared with independent assessments
made by other members of the research team. In adopting this strategy
we were cognizant of criticisms that have been made about the
reliability of qualitative work (Tooley and Darby 1998; Foster, Gomm and
Hammersley 1996). The use of multiple research methods (quantitative
and qualitative) enabled us to provide a more comprehensive analysis.
Course documentation, prospectuses and other promotional materials,
together with evidence from other strands in the research (for example
from our student survey), were utilized for purposes of triangulation.
In addition to the SCITT, our research focused on seven òld' univer-
sities and eight `new'; the later having been polytechnics prior to the
abolition of the binary divide in Britain in 1992. The significance, for
our study, of the distinction between the old and the new lies in the
observations made in the Dearing Report (1997) and other comment-
ators (Modood and Shiner 1994) that the new universities often have
better track-records in widening participation and promoting access.
Because of our concern to identify good practice, the investigation

focused on institutions with relatively high levels of minority ethnic
recruitment. Indeed, over 50 per cent of the minority ethnic trainees
accepted for the PGCE in 1996 (GTTR 1997) were located in the institu-
tions in our study. We were aware of the geographical variations in
minority ethnic participation in initial teacher training, and in particular
the regional concentration in London and southeast England, the
Midlands and certain parts of northern England. Two of the institutions
in our study were located in northern England, three in the Midlands,
four in southeast England and seven in the London area.
The evidence of the gatekeepers
The interviews revealed differences between institutions in the measure

taken to attract ethnic minority students. While seven of the universi-
ties in our research (which it should be remembered had been drawn
specifically from institutions that had been successful, historically, in
recruiting ethnic minorities) took no special steps to attract ethnic
minority trainees, five institutions used targeted advertising in specialist
minority press and other media. The use of `taster' courses was more
common among the new universities.
The variation in recruitment practice was consistent with the long-
standing difference between the new and old sectors noted by Coffield
and Vignoles (1997). In their paper on access, prepared for the Dearing
Inquiry, the post-1992 universities have tended to promote equal
opportunities in their public image and they pursue strategies directed
towards specific groups. While the institutions in our sample did not
experience difficulty in attracting applications from minority ethnic
students, there was geographical variation as well as variation between
the ethic groups attracted to particular institutions.
Admissions tutors said that their location, closeness to concentrations
of minority ethnic populations, and their reputation were the main
factors accounting for their relative success. The PGCE course director
at one old university said, Ì think ethnic minority students are attracted
to this institution in many ways. Not only by the university and the
campus and the kind of reputation that the university has got but also
by the range of (teaching practice) schools that we work with that have a
multi-ethnic, multi-cultural backgrounds. Many students come to us
because they feel that their experience of teacher training will be
enriched by working in the kind of schools that we work with.' The
course director at another old university made a similar point. `We are
definitely not a local provider, I mean it's less than thirty percent of our
students who go on into local schools, but people do choose to come
here because of the multi-cultural nature of the area.'
Our earlier postal survey had indicated that proximity to place of
residence is often a critical factor for many minority ethnic student
teachers, particularly mature students with family commitments, and
this was confirmed by the interviews. The following response from a
tutor at the SCITT makes the point. `We have older people ± not as old as
me! ± but older people with families, married ladies with families for
whom the distance is an accessible distance. The schools are near their
homes, this (SCITT) operates near their homes, so that's one of the
attractive things. We have got quite a few married ladies (who) need to
think about home life and accessibility. And perhaps, if the course was
somewhere else, they may not have been as easily accessible.'
An emphasis on establishing and maintaining links with the local
community was a common feature in the approach to recruitment
taken by most of the institutions in our study. This community orienta-
tion was not directed only at ethnic minorities but was part of a broader
recruitment strategy. Location in a large, multi-ethnic conurbation was
generally regarded as a `selling point'. The new universities in our study
tended to project themselves as local providers with a commitment to
equal opportunities and multiculturalism. One new university head of
department told us that `the whole University is very strongly focused
on its local community, its regional identity and it's well renowned for
its commitment to increasing access to higher education. It was one of
the first institutions to start Access courses in order to try and increase
the representation of groups historically under-represented in higher
education ± and that certainly included ethnic minority groups. The
School of Education, here, has really taken on the University vision and
applied it in the context of teacher education and professional develop-
ment. And so our commitment is to serving the educational needs of the
local community. It doesn't mean we're introspective. We have interna-
tional and national links as well, but we're very keen to work effectively
in this urban context and we are keen to recruit students from within
the community'. And it is worth re-emphasising, here, that this sense of
commitment to the locality did not result in a parochial outlook.
Indeed, the same institution also targeted international language
students (a fact readily apparent in its course publicity materials) and
attracted a significant number of students from abroad.
While the new universities had a more explicit emphasis on local
recruitment, this is not to say that the issue was unimportant to the
old universities in our sample. Explaining buoyant levels of minority

ethnic enrolment, one admissions tutor at an old university told us that
`the most common reason is the content of our course ± the vast major-
ity of them said it was the form and structure of our course that attracted
them. The second reason was to be near home. But thirdly, because they
wanted to be in this city. Over half of them were recommended by a
friend.'
Institutions on both sides of the former binary divide and the SCITT
in our study deployed a wide variety of recruitment strategies to attract
applications from minority ethnic communities. Examples included
targeted advertising in the minority ethnic press (for example, The
Voice, The Asian Times and other similar local publications); liaising
with community organizations; and offering taster courses for minority
ethnic students and other under-represented groups (males, for ex-
ample). Other approaches included advertising on the world-wide web
and the use of local `black' music stations to promote courses. In their
various advertisements, brochures and prospectuses many institutions
featured multicultural representations and emphasized their commit-
ment to minority ethnic recruitment. One of our respondents, a tutor at
a new university, reported that `we started a programme that involves
support from the TTA for taster courses for people from ethnic minority
backgrounds. These are TTA funded in conjunction with two LEAs. We
have two programmes this year specifically for ethnic minorities.' The
Secondary course director at our SCITT reported that `we run what are
called taster courses funded by the TTA and these are specifically
designed ± in most cases ± to attract ethnic minority candidates. They
have been successful in the sense that we've been oversubscribed. These
are two-day courses, where they go into schools and they have an
opportunity to discuss what it means to be a teacher with other teachers,
both here and in the school.' The Primary course director added, Ì think
because we have had ethnic minority students in the past there is a
grapevine. There are quite a few that come to us because ethnic minority
students have had a successful time and have got jobs, I think that's one
thing.'
Other respondents also stressed the significance of the `grapevine' and
personal recommendation in minority ethnic recruitment. For example,
the course director at one of our new universities accounted for her own
institution's success in attracting applicants saying that `word is out in
the community that we run a very successful course with a high percent-
age of ethnic minorities working in schools with ethnic minority
children. Because somebody has actually been here and has family or
extended family at university, the word seems to get around. I

think, that's why we've been successful.' The Secondary course director
at an old university concurred with this view, saying that although
her institution had made some use of targeted advertising, it was
likely that personal recommendation was a more important influence
upon its relatively high levels of minority enrolment. `We advertise ±
when we've got the money ± in ethnic minority newspapers. But the
impact of that must be pretty marginal. I assume it must be word of
mouth.'
Perceived constraints on recruitment
A recruitment drive, which has included a television, cinema and poster

campaign using the theme that `No One Forgets a Good Teacher' was
running concurrently with our research. We did not seek admissions
tutors' views on the campaign but it was raised by them on several
occasions in response to our more general question, Ìs there anything
you would like us to pass on to the TTA about how they could improve
ethnic minority recruitment into teaching?'. The admissions tutor at
one of the new universities said, Ì genuinely couldn't because we've
been striving for many years to maximize the numbers. But I don't think
very much of the TTA's current series of advertisements ± ``No One
Forgets a Good Teacher''. That garbage would not attract me into the
teaching profession'. And the Secondary course director at an old uni-
versity said that `with teacher recruitment generally, there is conflict
between the image of the advertising campaign and the other messages
from officialdom. For example, the constant derision, and complaints
about the standard of teaching ± it needs to be more consistent. Don't
have Chris Woodhead (from 1994 to 2000 Chief Inspector of Schools)
shooting his mouth off. Students are very conscious of the adverse,
negative stuff ± not the advertising campaign. It needs to focus on the
image; teaching needs to be seen as a more professional occupation.'
Our earlier postal survey had indicated that admissions tutors'
attitude during early contacts, and at the interview, were influential in
students' eventual decisions about training at a particular institutions.
The first direct experience that an applicant had of the institution was
very important. Twelve institutions reported that they took `no special
steps' to vary their admissions or selection procedures to take account of
ethnicity and were often at pains to emphasize that every case was
treated on its merits. In those institutions where tutors said they did
take special measures when interviewing minority ethnic applicants
there was, nevertheless, a reluctance to deploy overtly different criteria,

or to vary procedures. Respondents were often guarded and sometimes
gave ambivalent accounts of their practices.
One course director in an institution that endeavoured to interview
all minority ethnic applicants insisted that there was `no dilution of
quality' as a result of what was described abstractly as àffirmative action
measures'. A tutor at another old university alluded to the controversy
surrounding such measures: `positive discrimination within the existing
rules? I think that positive discrimination is an issue, and I think that it's
a difficult issue to discuss as a staff.' At the same time, the Primary course
director at a new university said, `We actively seek to offer interviews to
any ethnic minority students who apply, and to any men. We offer them
the opportunity of an interview but do not lower the standards that they
have got to achieve.' Another institution offered advisory interviews for
all prospective minority ethnic applicants. They said that potential
trainees with `lower degree classifications would be welcomed' on the
basis that, in the words of a Primary course director at an old university,
`the class of degree actually bears no resemblance to what that person is
going to end up like as a teacher'. However, the extent to which institu-
tions can continue to operate this kind of flexibility is circumscribed by
the stringent course entry requirements laid down by the DfEE and TTA,
now reinforced by the publication of institutional Performance Profiles
(see TTA 1998). Our respondents said that they thought that the cumu-
lative effect of externally imposed requirements was to leave institutions
with very little latitude. The concern for standards, which is shared by
all, appears to be increasingly translated into a uniformity of practice
that might deny opportunities to respond specifically to cultural and
ethnic diversity.
The admissions tutors at many of the institutions in our study said
that they wanted to offer all minority ethnic applicants an interview but
that this was not straightforward because the GTTR does not provide the
institutions with advance information about a candidate's ethnicity. A
Primary course admissions tutor at a new university, clearly frustrated by
the lack of information, remarked `we can't actually identify them
(minority applicants) because the GTTR takes the ethnic monitoring
bit off the form before we get it. But as I said to you earlier, you can
guess possibly by looking at their names or place of birth. Whilst we
can't lower the standards for the candidates we choose even for inter-
view, we would look favourably at any ethnic minority students, and
any men.' Details of candidates' ethnicity are withheld on the grounds
that decisions could be negatively influenced by such information. At
the time of writing, this data is sent to institutions only after the
students have started their courses.
Some institutions have their own databases and monitoring systems
in place; these institutions were among the most critical of the data
provided (and withheld) by GTTR. A question about use of GTTR data
elicited the following response: ` `Ùsed'' might be putting it a bit
strongly! It's kept a careful eye on. We keep an eye on the proportions
of applicants interviewed, given places, etc. It's hard to keep track using
the GTTR data because it's retrospective.' One new university head of
department said, `We make very little use of GTTR data. We generate our
own data, which is at least as sophisticated and more detailed.'
Despite the reported shortcomings of the GTTR data, five institutions
made use of them for post hoc monitoring of their intakes on a year-by-
year basis, and also as an aid to tracking students' progress during
training. One old university tutor reported using these data as one of a
series of indicators in its annual quality assurance review. But we found a
small number of institutions where the senior staff were unaware even
of the existence of the data, and others where no use at all was made of
them. An admissions tutor in a new university when asked how GTTR
data were used said, Ì don't know who gets it in the institution, or even
if anybody even looks at it. No I can't answer that question; I don't know
who would be able to answer that one.'
Our postal survey had revealed concern about morale within the
teaching profession, the pay and conditions of teachers and the high
political profile of education. Admissions tutors articulated similar con-
cerns when discussing their perceptions of the constraints on minority
ethnic recruitment to PGCE courses but our respondents suggested that
this factor had salience for all candidates irrespective of background.
However, one tutor said that she thought that `students from ethnic
minority backgrounds who have higher degrees go elsewhere, they
don't go into teaching, that's the problem'. And another tutor said,
`this may be slightly anecdotal evidence but I've heard from certain
students that within the Asian and the African Caribbean community,
images of teaching may be slightly negative'. Another admissions tutor
said, `the Asian community are often looking for their young people
who do well at school ± to become doctors, lawyers, accountants ± all
things with high status and good money; and teaching is not seen as
having high status or good money. Young people of Asian origin, and
students actually on our course have told me that.'
On several occasions, admissions tutors indicated that they thought
that course entry requirements for the PGCE served to prevent some
ethnic minority applicants from gaining a place. As we have already

seen, some course providers felt that the current entry requirements are
inflexible and allowed few opportunities for discretion. In particular,
non-UK qualifications were not always recognized. This is a problem
where students start their education in one country and continue it in
another. Our earlier survey showed that graduates with non-UK qualifica-
tions represent an important source of minority ethnic recruitment to
PGCE courses. Several institutions reported that a more flexible policy
would have enabled them to increase their minority ethnic recruitment.
The introduction of Performance Profiles, which include quantitative
data on students' prior academic attainments both at school and degree
levels, could make admissions tutors reluctant to admit students whose
qualifications cannot readily be mapped onto the specifications for the
Profiles. Crucially, any degree obtained from an institution outside the
UK is recorded in the Profiles as a `Pass' degree, regardless of the actual
achievement of the student concerned (TTA 1998).
Assessment of the impact of Performance Profiles was outside
the immediate scope of our study, but admissions tutors' concerns
about meeting prescribed entry standards was evident during our
interviewing; this was not confined to recruitment of international
students. The following comment, from a senior member of staff at
a new university is characteristic. `Now that we have Performance Pro-
files . . . they will demonstrate publicly that institutions such as ours have
amongst the lowest À' level entry grades and also have the highest
proportion of minority ethnic students. The association in the public
mind, unfortunately, is not going to be very positive. The pressure,
indirectly perhaps, will be to change our admission procedures to try
to recruit students who have better À' level points.' This suggests a
possible limiting factor to the TTA's efforts to increase minority ethnic
recruitment into the teaching profession. There is a body of evidence
that shows that the overall attainment levels of pupils from African
Caribbean and Bangladeshi backgrounds, for example, tend to be
lower than those of other ethnic groups (Gillborn and Gipps 1996).
The TTA policy of driving up the average À' level entry score could
press institutions to exclude the very same groups of students from
disadvantaged backgrounds that the Higher Education Funding Council
is encouraging universities to accept through its Widening Access
Initiative (HEFCE 1999).
The issue of qualifications is a greater barrier to recruitment of
minority ethnic students to the old universities, which are more likely
to be over-subscribed, by well-qualified students, especially in the arts
and humanities. The older universities are often able to use high level of
entry qualification as a simple and transparent means of selection. As
one Secondary course director in an old university put it rather
succinctly: `We are traditional in as much as we say, ``You come to us
with your degree and we'll decide whether we want to take you or not''.'
A tutor in another old university said: `we don't discriminate in any nice
or bad sense as far as we know against any particular group of students.
The arguments or discussions we have (between ourselves) at the end of
our selection interviews are about whether students would be able to
survive in an inner-city classroom. We look carefully at those who have
been very quiet at interview; who haven't been able to express them-
selves and don't seem to be very sure of themselves. We certainly don't
operate any positive discrimination in any overt way.' An admissions
tutor in a new university said that any such measures, if adopted,
`could be a breach of the university's equal opportunities policy and
possibly also be in violation of anti-discrimination legislation.' At one of
the new universities that is successful in attracting students from
Asian backgrounds to its Maths PGCE course, the Secondary course
leader noted that, òur Maths PGCE recruits a large number of male
Asian students. However, we are not taking note of ethnicity when
selecting for interview or when we interview. We are just simply noting
general qualities, you know, communication skills and all that sort of
thing.'
Staying on the course or dropping out
Admissions tutors were divided over their assessment of the factors

affecting the retention of ethnic minority trainees on the course.
Given the proportion of mature trainees among the ethnic minority
entrants to PGCE courses, the issue of financial hardship and domestic
responsibilities were of particular significance. This had already been
apparent from responses to our earlier postal questionnaire. Financial
hardship impacts in at least two ways. Some students find that they
are unable to complete their course because of lack of funds, while
others prejudice their chances of successful completion by taking
on part-time jobs to supplement their income. A tutor in an old univer-
sity said, Ì'm doing some exit interviews at the moment with those
who successfully completed the course and I've discovered that a
large numbers of them were, in fact, working throughout. They will
only tell me now, of course, because they were not supposed to be
working.'
Our postal survey had highlighted concerns about students encount-

ering racism in schools. In particular, respondents said they were
concerned that they might experience isolation in staff rooms, be
`cold-shouldered' by teaching staff and be confronted by racist attitudes
among some pupils. Such concerns have been noted in earlier studies
including those by Osler (1997), Jones, Maguire and Watson (1997) and
Siraj-Blatchford (1991). Osler's interviews with sixth-form students
revealed that Black and Asian teachers were perceived as being given à
harder time' than their white counterparts. The ethnic minority trainee
teachers in her study expressed anxieties about placements in schools in
areas with racist activity. The kinds of question raised included whether
à white tutor could understand their experiences' of racism (Osler 1997,
p.179). Osler's study suggests that ethnic minority trainees may be sub-
jected to a variety of additional pressures during their teaching practice.
Jones, Maguire and Watson (1997) echo this finding and it suggests that
pressure may be less pronounced in multi-ethnic schools where staff
tend to be more sensitive to the needs and concerns of minority ethnic
trainees.
Although PGCE staff in only a handful of institutions saw explicit
racism as a major constraint upon minority ethnic retention they
certainly did not convey the impression that they were blaseÂ about the
issue. As one Secondary course director at a new university said, ìt's
much easier to be a white, freewheeling male of twenty-one. That's
the easiest thing to be.' An admissions tutor at another new university
said that ìn some of the schools where there aren't any black teachers
there is an undercurrent of racism in the staff-room and from
the parents.' Another tutor referred to a student who had `walked
into the classroom and the children had said, `Òh, here comes a Paki
teacher''. But the student didn't tell me about that until she left the
school.'
Supporting ethnic minority students
The staff in university departments of education expressed concern

about placing trainees in environments where the level of racist activity
was perceived to be high. But they were also anxious not to appear to be
`labelling' particular schools or appearing to treat minority ethnic trai-
nees differently from their white peers. An admissions tutor at a new
university said, `there are schools where I wouldn't place certain
students from ethnic minority backgrounds because of the pressures
they might be subjected to. I'm able to skirt around that to some extent.
Certainly, there are racist tensions in some areas.' The course director at
another new university recalled that àbout five or six years ago in a
particular part of the city where there was evidence of high activity
amongst right wing racist groups, and I remember an Asian student
saying, ``Hang on, I'm sorry I don't think it's a good idea for me to go
there''.' Another tutor said that `we think very carefully before we put
black or Asian students in . . . we do de-select, that's to say we take
students out, put some in, it's a really delicate issue.'
There was a broad consensus among those tutors we interviewed that
school placement is a sensitive issue which ideally should not be unduly
influenced by concerns arising from trainees' ethnicity. Most institu-
tions encouraged their students to gain a broad range of experience in a
variety of contexts. They wanted to be supportive while not being over-
protective. They were concerned to provide trainees the opportunity to
learn from experiences (both positive and negative) while not exposing
them to undue risk or pressure. One institution sought to reconcile
these competing demands by giving the trainees themselves a large say
in their choice of school placement. A tutor in an old university
described her approach saying that `we give a clear indication of the
kind of background of the school, its size, what kind of age-groups
would be taught, and then we have a ``post-it'' label system so they
can stick their names down and they can elect where to go.' If several
trainees wanted to attend a particular school and there were not enough
places, they would be encouraged to discuss it among themselves and
come to a collective decision. A similar practice was described by the
course director at another old university, who said, `the principle is quite
clear. The students select the school they wish to go to based on the
information that the schools have provided. They just go through this
with their friends. When they go along for their interview that school
has been chosen by them, so there is a sort of psychological bonding
almost before they get to the school. It hasn't been imposed upon
them.'
Many of the tutors we interviewed referred to the significance of peer
group networking and student support groups. Some of these were
formally constituted within the university education department
while others were ad hoc `self- help' groups organized by the students
themselves. A tutor in an old university said that ònce they go onto
teaching placements we suggest to every cohort of students that there
are opportunities for a ethnic minority support group to be set up,
if they want it. Most years, there will be some such group set up, a
smallish group. That group has the right to talk to me and to the
PGCE sub-committee if there are any issues to bring forward'. A tutor in

another old university said `we make an arrangement ± very early in the
course ± to meet students and talk to them about providing some kind of
support forum. We've called it all sorts of things: `support group', `dis-
cussion group', `support forum'. We've had lots of words for it. If stu-
dents want to be part, they are part but if they don't, they needn't be. In
fact the majority want to be and they appreciate the opportunities to
talk to other people during the year.' The course director at the SCITT
said `there is a high population of ethnic minority trainees on the course
who group together, and there is a self-support group. You know, I think
that's a very positive thing, it provides affirmation, self-esteem, those
kind of things.'
As well as encouraging ethnic minority trainees to develop their own
peer networks, many teacher trainers recognized that course modules on
multicultural and anti-racist education offer an additional means of
support. In one of the new universities trainees were provided with the
opportunity to explore ìssues of identity and ethnicity' during the
PGCE course induction week. The merits of this particular initiative
were described by the Primary course director who said that àlmost
everyone who's done that course has said what a difference it made to
their feeling of being valued. And all kinds of aspects of their experience
being, not only talked about, but seen as something valuable and inter-
esting to discuss.' Despite the potential benefits of such initiatives (for
all trainees irrespective of ethnicity) there would appear to be relatively
few opportunities for work of this kind in the PGCE. Because of the
intensive nature of the course, the current priorities of educational
policymakers and the numerous competing demands upon staff time,
such work has been largely relegated to the periphery. According to the
Primary course director at one of the new universities `people are feeling
greater and greater pressure with numeracy, literacy and science becom-
ing the big areas. There is lots of pressure and students' own subject
competence is becoming a big issue.'
Several respondents described the strategies employed in their institu-
tions to offer specialist support to speakers of English as an Additional
Language. However, in one old university which had taken particular
steps to monitor the progress of trainees experiencing difficulties in
English, the staff reported that such trainees were sometimes reluctant
to take up offers of extra tutorial help with their written work. In
another old university the Secondary course director pointed to
the resource implications of such provision, particularly in institutions
which recruited internationally. `We can provide support for written
language skills because the institution as a whole has an English

Language Unit to service all the overseas students. But they can't
provide support in terms of oral and communicative, interactive skills,
which really is where the need lies. Some sort of resourcing which
would enable us to put courses on either prior to, or towards
the beginning of, the PGCE year, together with ongoing support
to develop communicative skills. There are resource implications
though.'
As we have already seen, tutors often went to considerable lengths to
ensure that ethnic minority trainees were adequately supported both in
their placement schools and on campus. Some teacher training tutors
said that specific account was taken of religious and cultural difference
in the allocation of placement schools. For example, a senior member of
staff at an old university stressed that every effort was made `to accom-
modate student preferences in terms of religious beliefs, dress codes, and
other cultural factors'. Despite the efforts of institutions to meet the
religious and cultural needs of individual trainees during placement,
there could be no guarantee that staff in partnership schools would
show the same sensitivity to difference. A senior tutor at an old uni-
versity said, Ì was just talking with a young Muslim PGCE science
student. She says, ``There is a problem as soon as I walk into a school.
They look at me and they know I'm different, and I'm immediately
treated differently''. And I didn't know how to respond to her. She
feels there's something ± perhaps she's just sensitive to the way she's
dressed differently to the majority of the people in the school. There was
another story, also (involving) a young Muslim. She was allocated to a
school in . . . . She walked into the school and the deputy head, in the
middle of the staff room, walked across and said ``welcome''. And she
said, ``Sorry, I don't shake hands with men'', and he went white. He was
so angry (that) he phoned me up. Now this indicates the mentor train-
ing that we still need to do. He was an experienced deputy head, had
lived in this area twenty years, and he made this elementary cultural
mistake.'
At this stage of our research we are unable to say how frequently
minority trainees experienced similar incidents during their school pla-
cement but a secondary course director at an old university said that in
surveys carried out in his institution, reported incidents were `very, very
small indeed'. The same respondent also stated that where such
incidents were brought to the attention of university staff, they were
dealt with in a prompt manner. For instance, when a student had
complained about racist graffiti in one of the lavatories on campus it
was `dealt with within a week. It was taken off the wall, it was painted
over, and to me that was an adequate response to an issue that he or she
had raised.' While it is a relatively straightforward task to respond
robustly to blatant racism, arguably, other more insidious manifesta-
tions, such as the èlementary cultural mistake' referred to above, may
be far harder to monitor and challenge. The implications for staff
training and mentor development would seem to be self-evident.
Equal opportunities issues, including those relating to ethnicity, did
not appear to figure prominently in mentor training and staff develop-
ment programmes at the institutions in our study. Nevertheless, our
respondents did not present themselves as at all blaseÂ about equal
opportunities matters. On the contrary, many had a longstanding and
active commitment to multiculturalism and anti-racism. However, a
number took the view that `curriculum overload' on the PGCE and the
changing priorities of educational policymakers had led to the marginal-
ization of such issues. As one Secondary course director said `we had a
staff development session that focused on equal opportunities and, as a
consequence of that, we've got a departmental working party. We used
to do more, but everyone is now running to keep up with ICT (and)
the English, Maths and Science curriculum. The TTA agenda has
crowded out at lot of other issues.' Mentor training programmes were
similarly circumscribed according to the head of department at a new
university who said that these `sessions tend to be tightly focused
and `ìnstrumental'' in their concerns.' But despite the constraints,
staff in several universities reported that they had taken steps to ensure
that equal opportunities were addressed in their mentor training
programmes.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have reported some of the findings from our research
at 16 English initial teacher training institutions. This work builds on
our earlier postal survey of ethnic minority entrants to the PGCE in
1997±98 (see Carrington et al., 1999a). The chapter has focused on the
work of admissions tutors and other key staff at institutions with a
relatively buoyant level of minority ethnic recruitment across different
parts of the country. The institutions in our research were all located in
urban areas with substantial minority ethnic populations. In addition to
recruitment practices, we have described some of the strategies
employed to support postgraduates during their teacher training
courses.
A variety of strategies were employed by teacher training institutions

to attract minority ethnic trainees. Their prospectuses, brochures and
other promotional materials were found to underline their commitment
to cultural pluralism and social inclusion. While some institutions made
use of targeted advertising in the ethnic minority press, others sought to
promote their teacher training courses via the world-wide web, local
black music stations or community organizations. A number of institu-
tions offered prospective minority applicants `taster' courses or advisory
interviews, or were proactive in cultivating links with their local com-
munities. Although the significance of the `grapevine' and personal
recommendations in ethnic minority recruitment was recognized by
institutions on both sides of the former binary divide, the `new' uni-
versities and the SCITT seemed to place greater emphasis on local
recruitment than the old universities. Although seven of the universities
in our study (four old and three new) took no `special steps' to attract
ethnic minority trainees, admissions tutors and other staff did not con-
vey the impression that they were complacent about ethnic minority
recruitment.
The staff interviewed recognized that the location of an institution
and its academic status were important reasons for success in recruiting
ethnic minority trainees. This corresponded with the findings of
our earlier postal survey. Although some institutions took special mea-
sures in relation to the interviewing of ethnic minority applicants,
in general terms, admissions tutors were reluctant to take explicitly
àffirmative action' that might be construed as leading to à dilution
of quality'. Nonetheless, admissions tutors recognized the need to
achieve a better balance in their intakes but complained that the
data supplied by the GTTR were, at best, of limited value for this
purpose.
A number of admissions tutors said that they felt that the current
entry requirements for the PGCE allowed few opportunities for discre-
tion, either in relation to UK applicants or applicants from overseas. In
particular, they would have welcomed a more flexible institutional
policy with regard to non-UK qualifications. In addition, some inter-
viewees thought that the TTA requirements relating to proficiency in
spoken English could serve to deter some international students from
applying to the PGCE. Although admissions tutors were divided in
their views about the constraints upon ethnic minority recruitment, a
number voiced concern about the public image of teaching that was
seen to have an adverse impact on all potential entrants to the PGCE,
irrespective of ethnicity. With the relatively large proportion of mature
trainees among the ethnic minority entrants to PGCE, financial hard-

ship during training was also seen as an additional constraint on ethnic
minority recruitment. This factor was also perceived to be a barrier to
retention.
While racism in schools was not perceived as a particular barrier
to ethnic minority recruitment or retention, tutors were concerned to
avoid placing black and Asian trainees in schools where levels of racial
harassment were known to be high. Teacher training staff faced a
number of dilemmas when allocating ethnic minority trainees to their
placement schools. They were concerned to be supportive but not to
cosset. They were conscious of the dangers of labelling schools, and they
were concerned to be seen by all trainees as acting in a fair and even-
handed manner. In some cases tutors reconcile these competing
demands by involving the trainees themselves in decisions relating to
the allocation of school placements.
A variety of strategies were employed by universities to support ethnic
minority trainees both on campus and during school placement.
Amongst other things, some staff underlined the important role played
by trainee self-support groups and they drew attention to the provision
of multicultural and anti-racist education, and to extra-curricular provi-
sion of English as an Additional Language. The question of financial
support for mature entrants to the PGCE was a matter for concern. Staff
said that unless specific measures were adopted to meet their specific
needs, the current drive to increase ethnic minority recruitment could
founder. Many Black and Asian prospective teachers are `career
changers', who may well balk at the prospect of a significant drop in
income during teacher training. In view of the evident tendency for
ethnic minority entrants to opt for PGCE places in institutions close to
their homes, admissions tutors said that initiatives to extend access in
multi-ethnic localities should be encouraged. An expansion of PGCE
provision in these areas may be required, coupled with enhanced
support for teacher training providers to take a more proactive stance
in local recruitment.
As we have indicated in our formal reports to the TTA (Carrington et
al., 1999a,b,c and 2000) the existing system of ethnic monitoring needs
overhauling. If teacher training institutions are to be encouraged to
recruit more ethnic minority trainees, the withholding of GTTR data
on the ethnicity of applicants is no longer appropriate. Our research
indicates a need for much clearer guidelines for admissions tutors on the
issues surrounding the question of `positive action' and particularly
their legal position in this respect.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the students and staff whose views we have
sought during this research, and the Teacher Training Agency for
financial support of the research. In particular, thanks to Jane Benham
who was head of teacher supply and recruitment at the TTA at the time
of this research. The views and interpretations in this chapter are ours
and are not those of the TTA or any other agency.
6
Manufacturing the Global Locality,
Customizing the School and
Designing Young Workers
Jane Kenway, Peter Kelly and Sue Willis
At the end of the 20th century young people's `transitions' (Sweet, 1995)
from school to work unfold in places which are marked by intensifying
globalizing processes. These processes have different implications for
different places, schools and identities and they provoke a variety of
responses as localities, schools and young people seek to position them-
selves favorably in relation to other places, institutions and people.
Their positioning practices are becoming more and more rationalized
and sophisticated. In globalizing economies, localities, schools and
young people are threatened with `permanent disadvantage' (Beck
1992). They are thus almost compelled to manufacture and market an
identity.
In this chapter we identify some key logics of globalization and
their consequences for the manufacturing of place, school and youth-
ful identities. We tell of the ways in which a remote rural region in
the south west of Western Australia harnessed some of the key
features of contemporary times to manufacture itself as an archetypal
global locality. This chapter also explains how a Vocational Education
and Training (VET) programme in a local secondary college in this region
was manufactured to fit this location ± also drawing on some key logics
of contemporary times. We examine the manufacturing of youthful
identities, ideal and deficit, by certain class segments of the locality.
In so doing we point to the ways in which the `regional entrepreneurs'
in both the school and the locality `customize' the VET programme in
order to `design' young workers.
119
Researching VET in globalizing circumstances
Over recent years sponsoring VET programmes in Australian post-

secondary schooling has become central to government education policy
(see Freeland, 1996; Kenway, Tregenza and Watkins, 1997; Probert, 1995).
The emergence of VET has largely been driven by powerful narratives of
globalization ± about the need for certain skills in competitive global
markets. VET policies, purposes and practices are then reduced to and
read off from such a view. VET has thus come to be understood mainly in
technical and instrumental terms ± as both a function of the global
economy and as serving a training function for Australian industry in
the global economy (Kenway, 1999).
Research into VET in schools has largely adopted this technicist and
instrumental mentality and as a consequence it is most often geared
towards describing the `take up' of policy, counting human and other
ìnputs and outputs' and identifying `best practice' models which can be
emulated across the field. Such research is often blind to the social and
the cultural. Thus these dimensions of local economies, labour markets
and communities and the various institutions involved in delivering and
supporting VET programmes are largely absent from analysis. Equally,
such research is also often blind to the biographies and identities of the
diverse range of students who participate in VET programmes.
In contrast, our three-year empirical study1 is considering VET in
schools in changing economic, technological, institutional and cultural
contexts in Australia. Through an examination of various aspects
of localities (for example, local labour markets, local government poli-
cies, local information and communication networks), the project is
studying the schools' and the local workplaces' reconstruction of them-
selves as suppliers of various forms of VET. It is being conducted in
12 schools in two states of Australia and in several different types
of locality. However, all the localities have been reconstituted in
one way or another as a result of changes in global markets, transnational
business practices, the globalization of the market metanarrative and the
privatization and downsizing of the provision of state services (Kenway
and Kelly, 2000). Through a series of interviews with students, teachers,
local business people and community education and training workers,
this study is identifying different adults' methods of remaking students
and different students' reconstructions of themselves as worker/citizens
in the uncertain labour markets of globalizing economies. The male and
female students involved come from different socio/cultural back-
grounds. All have been anonymized here where we offer a case study of
The Global Locality, the School and Young Workers 121
the way in which one locality and one school manufacture, and market, a
globally competitive identity.
Global economies of signs and spaces
How are we to understand the processes of globalization? What are their

implications for localities, the VET agenda in schools and the identities
of young men and women? Scott Lash and John Urry (1994) provide a
framework that is useful in this context. They have identified several key
features of contemporary times. These include intensified transnational
flows, burgeoning aesthetic reflexivity, the increased power of informa-
tion and communication networks, and the manner in which place is
reinforced even as many spatial boundaries are breaking down.
They focus on globalizing èconomies of signs and space' in which
objects and subjects are àmazingly mobile'. They understand this mobil-
ity, in terms of `flows' and point to the vast expansion in transnational
`flows' of `capital, money, goods, services, people, information, technol-
ogies, policies, ideas, images and regulations' (1994, 280). The causes,
processes and consequences of different kinds of mobility are key foci
for their analysis. Of course, as they say, embodied subjects such as
workers and tourists are far less mobile and thus less powerful than
digital information flows and the ideas, signs and symbols associated
with them (1994, 12).
Overall they observe that such flows are both `structured and structur-
ing' (p.3). They are `relatively independent' of individual nation states
(p.280) but not entirely free or unregulated. The forms of regulation that
they highlight are associated with the continual monitoring and
adjusting of these flows by expert systems. Here they refer not only to
the rise in importance of particular sorts of expertize associated with
developments in industry, science, technology, but also to those asso-
ciated with new capitalist processes of production, circulation, con-
sumption and accumulation. Accompanying this rise in the activity
and influence of abstract and expert knowledge, is a reflexive modality
(Beck, Giddens and Lash, 1994; Lash, 1994).
They have developed the notion of aesthetic reflexivity. They believe
this is a characteristic of current sign saturated global economies. Such
reflexivity is manifest in the rise of what some call `promotional culture'
and others have called `the aestheticization of everyday life' Here they
point to the èver-growing centrality of design intensive' production
and to the ìncreased sign value or image embodied in material objects'.
They also observe that with regard to the consumption of goods and
services, the expressive components is now seen as the best value to

add.
Expert systems and the various reflexivities associated with them are
strongly intertwined with what Lash and Urry (1994) call information
and communication (I&C) structures. These I&C structures consist of
`the networked channels in which information flows' and the `spaces
in which the acquisition of information-processing capacities take place'
(p.121). The construction of these networks and the reflexive monitoring
of them have become the domain of various forms of expertize. Produc-
tion and production relations are still important here, but are `subordi-
nated' to the information flows and networks (Lash 1994, p.129). Lash
(1994) suggests that `winning' or `losing' in this context is influenced by
àccess to productive capital or production structures', but, additionally
and most importantly, by àccess to and place in the new information and
communication structures' (p.121).
The sociology of place in globalizing contexts is a key concern of Urry
(1995). He explores the ways in which place and its dynamic articulations
with wider global forces, fashions the ways local people live and change
their lives. His work points to the sociological, cultural and spatial issues
associated with the localization of the global through the restructuring of
local economies and public services. He is concerned with the rapidly
changing èconomic base of place' and draws particular attention to
èconomies of signs' via the tourism, holiday and leisure culture industries
that have become increasingly important in the regeneration of certain
regional economies. A major aspect of Urry's work is the consumption of
place. He identifies four aspects and notes that there are contradictions and
ambiguities between them. First, he shows how places have become
centres for consumption ± `the context in which goods and services are
compared, evaluated, purchased and used' (1995, 1). Second, he observes
that places are consumed by those who utilize them and that services are
provided to enable this, for example, to assist the `tourist gaze'. Third, he
notes that places can be literally consumed in such a way as to deplete their
resources. Finally, he says that places can `consume one's identity'. They
can produce `multiple local enthusiasms, social and political movements,
preservation societies, repeat travel patterns, the pleasures of strolling
around and so on' (1995, 2). Let us now turn to the locality under scrutiny.
Manufacturing place in global economies
Margaret River is a town (population 3000) and a region in the south

west of Western Australia. This locality has positioned itself favourably
within the new spaces opened up by the cultural and economic logics of
globalizing economies. In this it has not only taken on many features of
contemporary economic and cultural forms, it has also attempted to
secure some sort of economic and cultural security. In the process, the
location has been similtaneously eroded and intensified.
In the early 1970s this was a traditional agricultural (wheat, cows)
area in trouble as global processes began to transform the commodity-
dependent Australian economy. However, in the 1970s and early 80s
there was an inward migration of alternative life-stylers (`hippies'), often
disaffected young middle-class professionals who brought with them
both intellectual and cultural capital. Over the subsequent two decades,
these `hippies' and the well-heeled `yuppies' who followed them
with investment money and business expertize, led an economic
recovery. This eventually involved new primary production in the
form of viticulture and the detraditionalization (Giddens 1994a) of
older forms of primary production ± eg `gourmet beef'. The region's
wineries now produce very fashionable, internationally acclaimed,
table wines.
The new arrivals were also instrumental in generating new non-rural
industries, drawing on the cultural capital they brought with them,
with regard to the visual Arts. Tradition and nature became further
commodified. So the region witnessed the emergence of various art and
craft `cottage industries', for example, glass and pottery, hand crafted
furniture and `new antiques'. Equally, leisure, tourism and holidays
industries flourished as people came from inland, from the city and
eventually from around the world. Surfing became a major attraction,
as have other nature-based enterprises such as sightseeing in the
caves and bush walking in forests. Here nature has been appropriated,
not for production, but for leisure and pleasure. Offering people
enhanced opportunities for visually and sensually consuming the
environment has become an accepted part of Margaret River's
promotional culture.
Many secondary industries have grown up around all the above. They
make much of their international connections and sponsorships. These
industries include wine tasting at the various vineyards, restaurants, surf
shops (surfboards and surfing clothing); Wet Dreams Surf Accessories
exports all over the world. The area now also holds various festivals
and sporting and cultural spectacles ± the Coca-Cola Surf Classic, for
instance. It has a reputation for its connections to the culture industries.
The following gives some flavour (excuse the pun) of the processes
reshaping this locality.
. . . . Leeuwin Estate wines have received outstanding accolades from

the international wine press and are exported to 25 countries. Open
daily for public tours, comprehensive wine tastings and cellar
sales. The award winning restaurant specializes in local produce
and is available for private functions. Leeuwin Estate holds a
number of concerts in summer, culminating in the famous Leeuwin
Concert which features the world's leading musical superstars. WINE
FESTIVAL Open all weekend 10am ± 4.30pm . . . . .
LUNCH, DINNER, CRAYFISH & CHARDONNAY The restaurant will
feature a special lunchtime menu showcasing new season crayfish
and Leeuwin Estate chardonnay or enjoy the four course set menu
Festival Dinner, accompanied by Leeuwin Estate's fine wines at $90 a
head. Crayfish rolls will also be available on the lawns. Be inspired
by the talents of master painter, Robert Juniper, who will be complet-
ing a work in progress from the verandahs during the Festival
weekend. (http://www.margaret-river-online.com.au/cape/towns/
margarets.htm)
During the Margaret River Food and Wine Festival, thousands of

people attend the Leeuwin outdoor concert. Companies from far and
wide bus down important international and Australian guests here to
enjoy a gourmet picnic and concert at dusk. This high culture/popular
culture hybrid involves symphony orchestras, in full dinner dress, and
also such international superstars as Elton John, Cleo Laine and Dianna
Ross.
Margaret River is not experiencing the rural decline that besets many
rural towns in Australia. It cleverly anticipated the rise of the tourist and
culture industries ± a rise that is a major international trend. Indeed,
tourism is one of the largest industries in the world in terms of employ-
ment and trade (Urry 1995, p.173). The region has been very successful
in attracting investment, people and reputation by promoting itself as a
centre for the consumption of both nature and culture. The town's up-
to-date, well structured, multilayered, colourful and image-rich website
testifies to the ways in which Margaret River deploys digital information
flows, and their associated ideas and images, to assist the tourist gaze
and encourage people to consume what it produces. This website pro-
vides an example of the manufacturing processes ± the discourses that
are mobilized ± to position the local in global economies of signs and
spaces.
The website page for Margaret River town says that `Margaret River is a
small town with a mighty reputation'. It
was once a service town for the dairy and timber industry. But, the
success of the wineries changed all that. The town rubbed the sleep
out of its eyes and while the rest of Australia was having a recession,
Margaret River and its surrounding district was booming.
The website then identifies the town's assets, which include what might
normally be expected in any county town. In addition they include, a
`big tourist bureau', a `host of specialty shops', `several superb restaur-
ants and cafes', art galleries, weekend markets and à superb Cultural
Centre'. Much is made of the growth story and the astounding rise of
the cost of land.
Twenty years ago you could not sell a block in the main street. Now
you need several hundred thousand dollars in your hand before you
even start looking, and there's not much available.
But the website text makes it clear that too much tourist consumption
may, in effect, deplete the very resources and atmosphere which attract
tourists in the first place ± the àway from it all' rustic, countryside/sea
side allure. So it makes the following assertions pointing both to its
`fierce' insistence on maintaining this feeling factor and its success in
so doing.
These days, the Cape has lost little of the charm it had in the early
days of its tourism industry. But that's only because its residents
fiercely battle to keep it that way. Thousands of tourists visit . . . every
year, and many of them choose to either stay or come back to live.
That puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the district's planners
to retain its charm while allowing for growth.
Retaining the unspoiled aesthetic while still attracting large numbers

of visitors is a highly reflexive process ± addressed in part in Margaret
River township by a `low key' tourism development philosophy.
The local authority in its wisdom set a policy of low-scale tourism

development and the community applauded and started to build.
Rather than create high-rise resorts the community built a range of
accommodation from so called chalets on farms to bed and break-
fast in suburban homes, beach side apartments, rural lodges and
motels.
Place managers and marketeers form a mutually beneficial alliance.

This is common in the selling of places as Kearns and Philo (1993)
demonstrate. Furthermore, as the following comment from a local per-
son indicates, the manufacturing of this locality's exclusive and desir-
able identity has shrewdly identified the particular logics that energize
global economies of signs and spaces.
It's been very cleverly marketed by the real estate agents. We have, for
a small town, a huge number of real estate agents. The two storey
buildings are the real estate agents. For a little town we have people
from Singapore, Germany buying land. Now you name a little town
of 3 to 4000 people that you know in Germany. You haven't got a
clue. But Margaret River would appear once a week in the paper or an
ad. Supplement. So it's very, very cleverly marketed for such a small
town, and that has led to huge, silly prices in real estate. Absolutely
unbelievable.
The more the local real estate agents produce what Duncan (1992) calls
èlite landscapes' the more they ensure their own status as reflexivity
winners.
This website is an example of place advertising. Advertising is a complex
form of communication. It is selective and strategic; it advocates and
seeks to persuade. It is about face value and best face. Advertising's àrt of
social influence' involves an expert understanding, not only of the utility
role of goods and services in the lives of consumers, but also the social and
cultural value of goods and services to the consumer (sign value). As Lee
(1993) argues, goods and services are used as a form of cultural expression
by the consumer. Advertisements also `produce dream-scapes, collective
fantasies and facades' (Zukin 1991, p.219). Through their advertisements,
places construct lifestyle dreams ± they tap into a whole range of fantasies
including, in this case, those of escape.
Place myths
Marketing place results in the development of `place myths' (Urry, 195,
29). They conceal that which detracts from `best face'. Such myths
usually hide the ways in which place is divided, stratified and conflictual.
The following is one view of the divisions which exist in Margaret River.
There are almost three layers. There are the new comers, people who
have come out of the mining towns with quite a bit of money buying
into vineyards or local businesses . . . . There are the hippies who went
down there in the 70s, a lot of drug use, big, big drug use. And then
there are the farmers, the original families who are quite different
again. They're the original settlers who had a country town sort of
view.
There is a suggestion that newer populations have displaced old. When

the hippies came to town in the 1970s and early 80s (an artefact
of history overlooked on the website), there was much local conster-
nation and policing of the boundaries with regard to who was and
was not entitled to live in the region and claim it as home. The `hippies'
were seen as invaders, disrupting others' sense of self and their identifi-
cation with their place. Since then other displacements have
occurred.
You can't be a hippy in Margaret River it's too expensive. Our cheap-
est house to rent in Margaret River is $150 a week. There may be
people who in the past had some ideas of conservation and that sort
of thing, recycling whatever, but the hippies have gone. Margaret
River is a yuppie town now.
There are, then, some who believe that Margaret River is a middle-class
community and playground and others that it is still something of a
`hippy retreat'. But of course it is not that simple. Definitions of `hippies'
vary and hippies change. They are variously associated with drugs, with
environmental movements, and with alternative and protest lifestyles.
All may apply in the Margaret River region as a whole but one thing is
clear, many of the alternative lifestylers of the 1970s have cashed-in
their intellectual and cultural capital to become the successful artisans
and small business people of the 1990s. Along with the yuppies many
are also reflexivity winners. But, there are also outsiders within. For
example, some escape fantasies have not been realized.
Somewhere along the line we ended up with a lot of little urban areas
that are quite expensive to live in. A lot of people had come down
with a dream from Perth to live the healthy, country life style and
hadn't counted on it being economically expensive. Of course you
got the situation where mum and dad both had to work to pay the
mortgage and the kids are at home unsupervised etc, etc. You were
getting these almost ghetto pockets in the town and we were starting
to get things for the first time like vandalism, and young people
hanging on streets with nothing to do.
New `landscapes of exlusion' (Sibley, 1992) are emerging.

The manufacturing and marketing of Margaret River itself has also
caused division.
The town itself with tourism and the rest had changed from a sleepy
little hollow to a big up market town. A lot of people hadn't coped
with that transitional stage and there had been a lot of divides
created in the community over different development issues.
Again, this is not the website's tale for tourists, which claims that `the
community applauded low-scale tourist development'. Neither is what
follows for the consumption of tourists.
They don't like tourists in Margaret River. Locals call them terrorists.
They rely on the income but they don't like them, they don't want
them there. No they only want the money, they want the income but
they don't like them. They're a necessary evil. Even the kids don't
want them there.
The `packaging and selling' (Sadler, 1992, 178) of this place then is partly
about `willing away difference' (Carter et al., 1993, p.xiii). It represses
those who feel `displaced', `dislocated' and `fragmented' as a result of
place making. As Keith and Pile, (1993) show such feelings are not
uncommon given that place and identity intersect. But it is also about
the identification of difference, where this differentiation marks the
place as unique. In the latter instance it is about manufacturing an
identity which attempts to connect to new class urban myths of a
rural idyll in which caffe latte, chardonnay, the artefacts of artisans,
preserved forests and beaches dominate over traditional Australian
rural stories of toil, uncertainty and natural calamity. This transformed
local identity produces, as we will see, new imperatives for particular
types of youthful identities.
Manufacturing enterprising young people
One aspect of the manufacturing of this locality has been a reflexive

attempt to structure VET programmes that connect strongly to these
transformed economies. Overwhelmingly these VET programmes
take as their object the attitudes and behaviours necessary to make
young people `job ready' and ènterprising'. As a member of the
Enterprise Business Centre says `[We need] to help young people see
self employment as a viable career option . . . . [M]any people in Australia

will be self employed, they will have to buy themselves a job to do. The
enterprising, job ready young person is both an ideal and a deficit
identity that shapes many of the discourses that circulate in relation to
the locality's young people.
Much of Margaret River's new tourist work is casual and seasonal, the
demand for local jobs exceeds the supply and full-time jobs are few and
far between.
It's nothing for people to have four and five jobs. Those who have got
work, not that many people have got full time work. I mean your
accountants and your doctors and your lawyers and those sorts of
people do have. But if you haven't got a lot of marketable skills you
are going to have to pick up lots of bits and pieces.
For the `bits and pieces' of work that do exist outside the trades and the
services there are just too many people. For the more specialized work
on some of the vineyards, employers `can employ people from all round
the world and they're going to take the best'. The casualization of work
and the deterioration of working conditions can be understood as a
consequence of globalizing economies in which differently energized,
invigorate flows of goods and services and wilful bodies (as consumers
and workers) intersect in novel ways to restructure work places and work
practices. Of singular importance in these new spaces is attitude. The
work ethic is a marketable work `skill' in emerging global economies
where, as Urry (1995, p.23) observes, there is ìncreasing competition
between places to present themselves as attractive to potential investors,
employers, tourists, and so on, to promote themselves, to sell them-
selves as service and skill-rich places.'
In the early 1990s it emerged that the business sector of the town
(including Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce ± both powerful
business networks) was concerned about local young people. They did
not seem to be getting the available jobs and their skill base was seen as
inadequate to the particular skill needs of this global locality. So was
their attitude. There was a belief that their homes had not instilled `the
work ethic'. Some employers even indicated that local young people
were not welcome in their shops as either workers or customers. Inter-
estingly, the relaxed lifestyle that was appropriate for hippies and
tourists was not seen to be producing the next generation of workers.
For Margaret River to continue to sell itself as a `service and skill rich
place' there was a view that young people's attitudes needed to be
redesigned. This is evident in the following quote from a community

youth worker.
There was a really negative perception of youth in the district too,

that they were undisciplined, they were unreliable, they were all into
drugs. It was just this really negative cloud hanging over the youth of
the district and people had no tolerance for them whatsoever.
The concerns about un-enterprising youth led to various successful

applications for government funding. These processes mobilized the
expertise of survey researchers and enterprise consultants to assess the
needs of youth in the area and also to find out employers' training
needs. When the local Business Enterprise Centre, a branch of a state-
wide network, surveyed employers about their training needs, they
found considerable dissatisfaction among employers with local young
people, many of whom, it appeared, had bought the `laid back' lifestyle
message rather too well. `Well, if the surf is up, I'm surfing, so you can
keep the job'. Employers said,
the training needs in my business are that I need young employees

who know how to smile at people; look them in the eye; have a work
ethic that means that if the shop opens at 9.00 you are here at
10 minutes to, not 30 minutes past or sort of lounging in whenever
you feel like it; and that you pay attention to the work that you do.
One outcome of these moves was the development of various schemes

designed to create enterprising young people. A Youth Council, youth
cafeÂ, skateboard park and `school shop' were some examples.
An associated community concern in the early 1990s was the fact
that Margaret River had no senior high school and that after Year
10 young people had to travel some distance to the nearest senior
high school or board away from home. Some left school early. Further-
more, `there was a lot of agitation' about the existing school which
had `the most run down buildings you've ever seen, deplorable' (Prin-
cipal) and `really poor outcomes' (Department of Training officer). After
a prolonged campaign from the local community. Years 11 and 12
were added in 1995, along with a A$6 millionar building upgrade. The
timing of this development coincided with the strong emergence of an
explicit VET agenda in Australian policy.
The new Principal, appointed in 1994, immediately `headhunted' the
expertise of a VET co-ordinator from another town. The Co-ordinator
argued that the school should offer VET programmes which were dis-
tinct and scheduled separately from the general educational offerings, a
practice which, he says, was `raging' at the time. The Principal resisted
this for a number of reasons, not the least being that with an anticipated
total senior school of approximately 125 students (it is now 185),
discrete specialist vocational courses would impair the viability of ter-
tiary admission oriented general programmes which require a `critical
mass' of students. Furthermore, he argued that discrete VET pro-
grammes tended to be used as a dumping ground for students with
behavioural problems. The Principal also argued the case for a broad
general education which would contribute to producing adequate cit-
izens not just adequate employees, otherwise, all `we're turning out is
factory fodder that . . . have got the political skills and . . . understandings
of society and of the environment of 14 year olds.' Nevertheless, he
admitted that
[VET is] the flavour of the month ± if you want to pick up your
government grants and all that sort of thing, you've got to play
that game a little bit. I don't really think that it is the role of schools
to train people for jobs but you know [what] the current political
climate [is] and educationally its flawed. Schools are not the place to
teach people how to do jobs, but schools, nevertheless, have got an
obligation to satisfy society's need for productive workers.
And `play the game' they did, and do exceptionally well, with all the
confidence and focus of the community's other entrepreneurs.
All Year 11 and 12 students study six subjects each year. For students
aiming to take Tertiary Entrance Examinations (TEE) at least four of
their subjects each year will be directed towards the tertiary exams. Of
60 students completing Year 12 in 1996, 36 took this route and almost
30 proceeded to university education. Non-tertiary bound students
are strongly encouraged to take four core subjects: English, Mathe-
matics, Computing Fundamentals and Work Studies and select
two other subjects. The list of choices includes both general and voca-
tional subjects such as Catering, Food Production, Jewellery, Furniture
Woodwork, Arts and Design, Photography, Small Business Manage-
ment and Enterprise. All students are able to take Structured Workplace
Learning (SWL) although they must first enrol in a course in Work
Studies.
In many schools in our research project, the general and tertiary
education oriented programmes in post-compulsory schooling are
considered of high status and their `purity' is fiercely protected from the
down market image of the VET programme. In dramatic contrast, in
Margaret River, the TEE option appears sufficiently secure for the school
to bring a strongly vocational slant to the post-compulsory years. In its
VET courses the school set about carefully crafting spaces in which an
enterprising youthful identity might be designed. The school decided
that
[all] upper school students would have access to a comprehensive

general education that would best prepare them for further study,
employment, enterprising self employment and citizenship. We
want to instill in students a sense of empowerment, that sense of
I can do what I want as long as I apply myself . . . . Our idea of
vocational education is not just about the skills list . . . . It's about
mentoring our young men and women ready to take a place in
society. . . . It's a holistic education, a general education, it's not
specific.
This image of a school connected well with the local middle-class

aspirations for their children to have a university oriented `general'
education with all the cultural capital which that entails. It tapped
into the concerns of the local employer community about the lack of a
`work ethic' among the town's youth. Finally, it drew, depended and fed
upon the town's construction of itself as the entrepreneurial but socially
responsible `village'.
There is a considerable emphasis in all the VET courses on ènterprise
and small business' with small groups of students managing various
parts of the school's farm, or undertaking their own projects. Consider,
for example, small business management and enterprise. At the beginning
of the year their teacher designs the course around the interests of
groups of students. Of the seven Year 12 students enrolled in 1996,
four girls worked in viticulture and they ran the vineyard on the school
farm for that year. Their work included organizing the picking of grapes,
titrating the grape juice, designing a wine label- and producing a wine
for which they won a local competition. Two boys worked in horticul-
ture including building their own facilities, developing a market and
selling the products. The school brings in mentors from the local com-
munity to support students in their projects, since the teachers them-
selves rarely have the specific skills needed and, of course, students have
access to ready markets in their community. Students have also set up a
web-based accommodation guide, which begins:
The place to look for Bed and Breakfast, Chalet or Cottage.

Accommodation in one of the best wine producing and surfing areas
in Australia. These establishments are helping to support our school,
enabling us to provide a better education for our youth. Please
quote our internet site when making bookings. If you would like
to be listed on this page, contact the school to discuss terms.
(http://www.mrshs.wa.edu.au/accom.html)
These sorts of practices are grounded in particular views of an ideal,

enterprising youthful identity which is both ìndividualized' and `stand-
ardized' (Beck, 1992). In global economies the supply and demand for
ìndividualized' and `standardized' (Beck, 1992) capacities, attitudes and
resources assume high levels of importance in shaping the life options
and chances of individuals. Beck (1992) argues that in `reflexive moder-
nization' individuals are increasingly released from prior groundings in
the `conscience collective' of class, gender and family relations (p.87).
These `tend to dissolve' in a `surge of individualization'. Here there is a
sense in which individuals ìnside and outside the family' must become
makers of their own destiny. The penetration of market relations and of
abstract systems into every aspect of life compel the individual to
choose. On the other hand and at the same time they promote forms
of market and institutional dependency ± forms of `standardization'. So,
we see `livelihood mediated by the market as well as . . . (by) biographical
planning and organization' (p.130). For Beck then these processes of
ìndividualization' are carried by, and indeed, carry processes of `stand-
ardization' (1992).
These processes create a range of new imperatives with which indi-
viduals, institutions and localities must engage. In Margaret River this
engagement is evident in the school customizing itself as a responsible
member of local employers networks, helping them to design `job ready'
young people. At the same time it also responded reflexively to the
hopes of young people for access pathways to labour markets ± local
and beyond.
Manufacturing the village school in a globalized village

The metaphor of the `nurturing village' is used constantly in the school.
The VET Co-ordinator asserts, À lot of people see this small community
as worth protecting.' In an email to a VET site, the Co-ordinator
describes features of the school's structured workplace learning (SWL)
programme, and the composition and role of the Committee, (consisting
of `regional entrepreneurs' see Lowe, 1993) set up to oversee it.
One other bonus is the amount of new businesses recruited by these

committee members . . . they really are ambassadors for our program/
school and also do a lot of explaining regarding SWL to new employ-
ers. . . . This is possible because we are a closed town so to speak ±
isolated by distance, socially cohesive and just about everyone knows
everyone as well.
His notion that Margaret River is à closed town' seems to be contra-

dicted by the digital and migratory flows that are part of the school's
programmes. Both the school and community regularly connect glob-
ally via the web ± one web search for `Margaret River' produced 2829
listings. Further, students' mobility patterns for their workplace learning
show that flow is an expectation and feature of the programme ± as is
connecting to certain forms of professional expertise. Indeed, it is seen
by some as good training for their sense of themselves as potentially
globally mobile workers.
Students have to use their school holiday periods for Structured Work-
place Learning and may travel some distances. For example, one young
woman wanted to increase her understanding of nursing,
. . . and so we put her out and she has done two years work of work
base learning, given up her holidays to do it, roughly five weeks a
year. At the end of Year 12 she has [been] all around the south to
Woodside Maternity Hospital in Fremantle [300 km north], down to
Augusta, Margaret River itself and Busselton. So what she's actually
done is completed fourteen subjects which is two bonus subjects
including four TEE for university entry and two units of the industry
specific work base learning course in health and community services.
She passed with flying colours . . . and so basically she . . . hasn't had a
holiday but sees it as really worthwhile.
(VocEd Co-ordinator)
This student is quoted on the school's website, promoting the SWL

programme.
Witnessing a birth got rid of any doubts I might have had about
whether I was suited to being a Registered Nurse/Midwife. I now
know this is exactly what I want to do
A boy, particularly talented in science, gained a SWL place at BHP where

`he was fortunate' because `they had a bit of a problem with the acidity in
their effluent ponds'. BHP flew in geophysicists and geologists from all
over the world to assess the problem. As a result, in one week, `he was
immersed in the work of an incredibly educated, focused, professional
group of people, both men and women.' The school then secured the first
placement ever with a particular exploration company which flew him to
their uranium mine in the north of the State some 3000 km from Mar-
garet River, boarded him for two weeks and then flew him back. The
company has now offered him paid work through his university holidays.
Now he brought back to us a knowledge of what it is like to work in

camp, but what he also said is, I know what university to go to, I
know what course to do, I know what to specialize in. He'd been
immersed. He was around mentors who were doing what he wanted
to do. . . . I suppose this lad is now more focused. He's now applying
for scholarships and using his work place learning, his vocational
education, to support his university entrance. He [was able to] pick
up vocational education because down here we run everything . . . òn
the grid'. (VocEd Co-ordinator)
These networks between the school, the business and wider profes-
sional communities have been carefully built. They are part of a long-
term manufacturing strategy. `Basically we have a curriculum on one
hand but we also have an agenda so that our students are employed
locally and that our town retains its youth.' In 1995, one hundred local
businesses in the Shire were contacted by the school. They were asked to
participate in the school's pilot structured workplace learning pro-
gramme and to complete a survey which, they were told, would influ-
ence the formation of the course. Many of the students in the school's
more vocationally oriented courses and SWL are the young people
described earlier as lacking the `work ethic'. The school assured busi-
nesses that the students were serious about the programme by pointing
out: `The students have shown how keen they are by being more than
willing to give up their holidays to be involved.' The school has also
created the spaces to work on `the look', the aesthetics of the job-ready
young person in order to develop and maintain connections to the
aesthetic sensibilities of the tourist economy of Margaret River.
These practices have been successful in the school's terms. For exam-
ple, several teachers recount the story of a student with a Social Security
appointed guardian and a series of convictions, who was a serious
behavioural problem at school. Ìt's been a tumultuous time for all of
us involved', but he has now graduated from Year 12 moving immedi-
ately into an apprenticeship he found for himself.
When I first asked Doug and Paul to place him, I'd already tried six
employers and because of his convictions no one was interested.
Doug and Paul were hard lads themselves when they were younger
and they said `yes, we'll take him on, but if he steps out of line you've
got to understand that he's going to be hammered back into reality
quickly.'
This experience was, according to the school, the `making of the man'
because,
he's got a fantastic work ethic . . . and it was Doug and Paul down
there who actually took the time to be involved with him. . . . [W]hat
they basically gave him was an introduction, for the first time in his
life, into the adult world and the responsible side of it, not the
drinking, the booze, the drugs side of it.
At the annual graduation ceremony this young male said of his experi-
ence:
On my work placements with Doug and Darren . . . they treated me

like a human being. Doug and Paul have worked for most of their
lives and set themselves up in houses, blocks of land, car and boats. I
looked up to them because of that. I'm going to work my arse off so I
can have all of that. I will be laughing when I set myself up in a few
years and I will thank Doug and Paul for showing me the path to go
down.
Such stories are part of the school's promotional culture ± shared with
students, parents, the local community and others far away. Two years
after its formation, the programme at Margaret River is widely regarded
as an example of `best practice', it has won a number of state awards, and
the VET Co-ordinator is often asked to act as an expert SWL consultant
to other schools. The school charges the price of two relief teachers for
each day he consults.
From the start, the notion of a `partnership' between school and
business community in the education of Margaret River's youth was
emphasized by the school. According to the Principal,
In terms of supplying labour to the local market, it [is something I'm]

really keen to see and we've been trying to market our school within
the community as the place to go when you want to employ people
and we really have been quite strong. I mean the structured work base
learning that we've done . . . has allowed us to get out to employers
and say, hey look, this is better, this is a much better, much more
sophisticated model than the old work experience, this is real and
significant learning.
Employers are èmpowered' by the school to assess and grade the stu-
dent in 30 generic skills chosen from a list provided by the Secondary
Education Authority. `When you start saying to employers, we'll do the
teaching and you do the evaluation, their eyes light up.' School promo-
tional material woos and flatters the business community.
Employers are perceived by the school to be the best people in the

community to teach students the `work ethic'. . . . One of the lines
which I use is that we can't teach the work ethic from an ivory
tower. . . [moreover, employers] know they are making a difference
in the lives of our community's young adults and they believe in
what they are doing. It's a simple hook really.'
(VocEd Co-ordinator)
The school prides itself on the highly professional approach to the

programme, `we're dealing with professional people so we must deal
with it professionally.' It is very sign sensitive. All booklets, letters
and information sheets are of high quality. Students on work place-
ments are visited at least twice and the Co-ordinator always has a bottle
of school wine ready to give an employer in case of a mistake or mis-
understanding. At the end of each placement, students send out a
thank you card, with a photo of the student with the employer. The
VET Co-ordinator also sends out letters of thanks to employers for their
`continuing support of our community's young adults'. Employers are
encouraged to continue their participation in the scheme by being
acquainted with the success of the previous years programme and they
are informed that the following year's students are ` . . . looking forward
to learning the ``work ethic'' from local employers such as yourself'.
Business people often place these cards on show next to a sticker, pre-
pared by the school, which states that the business actively supports the
SWL programme and provides `vital training for our community's young
adults.'
Some businesses have been `persuaded' to join the programme by the
efforts of the Workplace Learning Committee members. When there was
an unusually large number of students requesting positions in the
electrical field one year, the manager of one of the largest hotels, also a
committee member `let it be known that sparkies working for the hotel
should be involved in the programme. The next day saw three very keen
contractors ring us up to enrol.' Other employer participants may have
been encouraged by the school's reading of the benefits to businesses of
partaking in the SWL programme, which included: `lift the public
profile of your business and receive local community recognition
for your active involvement in the program' and `make the right
recruitment decisions'. And in this they are not being sold short. At
one graduation, the VocEd Co-ordinator quoted from one youth's report
on his work experience:
A role model for me from workplace learning has been KF. He has
taught me about hard work and how much it pays off in the end.
He gets up very early every morning to get everything ready for the
day. He will never settle for second best when it comes to what
he sells. He hand picks all the meat he wants and he makes all his
own hams and gourmet food, so the level of quality is just how he
wants it. I have learned that if I take pride in my job, work hard and
become good at it, I will have no trouble finding work and job
satisfaction.
Certainly, SWL is a part of the way in which the school markets itself
and it students to local employers. However, as with all such image
creation, it glosses over or ignores those who are losers in this process.
Students who feel displaced, alienated or fragmented by the programme
are unheard by it. The students who previously left school at the end of
Year 10, have lost the opportunity to undertake `work experience' since
it was dropped from Year 10 in favour of the Year 11 and 12 SWL. For the
5 per cent who still do not `come back' after Year 10, there is no
opportunity to gain work experience in school. Some students who
come back, only really do so for the SWL; `they didn't like that, they
wanted to do their work experience in Year 10, get a job and get the hell
out of here . . . they're cheesed off at the end of Year 10, they don't want
to be here.'
The fact that participation in SWL requires students to give up their
school holiday is heavily promoted by the school as evidence of the
student's commitment.
Plus, if you are keen, you'll do it, and that's what the employers really
want. They want a keen kid and that is really showing them that the
kid is keen. We have some of them who say no I don't want to do it.
You can look at it as an indication of their attitude. Because those kids
who are prepared to give up their time are the ones that are picking
up the jobs.
(Deputy Principal)
Some, however, resent this. One young male believed that SWL should
be undertaken in school time instead of the holidays. He claimed that
many of his school friends felt likewise but had taken the course after
being coerced to do so by the Deputy Principal and/or parents. Not all
students had succumbed to pressure. Another would have taken the
course if he could have undertaken SWL during school time but with-
drew, `Because I had to give up most of my holidays and weekend to do
that which I wanted to spend surfing.'
The quality of SWL placements also varies widely. The following
examples of one young male's `good' and `bad' placements represent
typical student experiences.
I went out to Bunyip Galleries . . . that's a fine furniture gallery. Went

out there in the workshop and they had a first year apprentice out
there and they couldn't really give me anything big to do, because he
didn't do much, like he just did what he was asked. So I did a lot of
timber stacking and cleaning, and just nothing too big. A lot of
sanding or whatever.
In contrast,
I went to the upholstery, Patterson's Upholstery. That was good to

look at because I didn't really know much about it, but there might
be a bit of woodworking involved in it, like framed furniture and
that. And there was a bit. It was quite good, they showed me heaps of
stuff about it.
Despite these drawbacks SWL has developed a positive reputation

among the students. But, as the following quote shows, it has been
forcefully sold.
Interviewer: How many year 11s would be doing structured work

based learning?
Student: At least half of them because Mr Cullen was forcing it
onto some people, like really trying to make them do it.
Interviewer: Why?
Student: Because we've got the best system in the country.
Conclusion
This chapter is informed by a view of globalization which attends to the

changing relationships between globalizing economic, social and cul-
tural influences and place, institutions and selves. Its focus was two-fold
± first on local expressions of global trends and processes, and second,
on the ways in which a locality and a school manufactured themselves
for the purposes of enhancing their life chances and choices. The man-
ufacturing metaphor suggests an active and ongoing process which is
`reflexively monitored' (Giddens 1991) by participants in the process.
The sense that something is manufactured provokes a further sense that
this is something in a competitive relationship with other manufactured
objects, processes and practices, and `must' thus also be marketed. The
manufacturing metaphor also points to the increasingly rationalized
processes by which the individuals, institutions and localities which
are involved in VET produce their identities in response to the circum-
stances in which they find themselves. They do so by drawing
on increasingly sophisticated, rationalized and aestheticized processes
of reflexivity in order to position themselves favourably in relation
to other places and participants in global economies of signs and
spaces.
We have shown how one small rural location in Australia is con-
sciously manufacuring its identity in transnational flows, the expertise
it deploys to do so, the manner in which aestheticization is integral to
its place marketing, the way networks are mobilized to assist and the
winners and losers which emerge as the locality is redesigned. With
regard to the school's VET programme we have shown how it mobilizes
information and communication structures and economies of signs to
facilitate the training and the management of young people's identities
to ensure they become `job ready' and enterprising young people. A
customized and well designed VET programme is a key element in the
manufacturing and marketing of this place, this school and these iden-
tities.
This narrative is largely about reflexivity winners and how they
have manufactured their winning status and seek to sustain it by produ-
cing and consuming local youth, and by marginalizing disadvantage
and ùnproductive' differences within the locality. As we said earlier,
`winning' or `losing' is influenced by àccess to productive capital or
production structures' and to securing a place in the new information

and communication structures of global economies of signs and space.
Margaret River is clearly rich in the neccessary natural, cultural, social
and financial capital to enable it to respond productively in this context.
The reflexivity chances and choices of many of its young people are
significantly enhanced as a consequence. Let it be clear though, we do
not offer this case as an example of `best practice' for emulation. Rather,
it is a case about the mobilization and sustaining of advantage through
the servicing of the advantaged. However, as our wider research project
is showing, for those localities with few such advantages, warding off
the threat of `permanent disadvantage' in contemporary times is a
much more arduous, less glamorous project (for example Willis and
McLelland, 1997). They have the cruel task of grappling with the ugly
signs and spaces of globalizing processes in which no one accepts
responsibility for manufacturing impoverished localities, customizing
residualized schools and designing young unemployed.
Note
1. This project is funded by the Australian Research Council and is being con-
ducted by Jane Kenway, Peter Watkins and Sue Willis, with Peter Kelly and
Robin Meulebach as researchers in Victoria, and Peter McLelland and Judy
Berman in Western Australia.
7
Development, Democracy and
Deviance in Contemporary
Sociology of Education
Lynn Davies
Three of the most important strands in sociology of education today are

arguably sociology of development, sociology of democracy and sociology
of deviance. They are not often put together, but global trends suggest a
new combination of thinking which would lead to a more proactive role
for sociologists of education. A sociology of development explores why a
country is at a particular `stage' of progress, stasis or regress; a sociology
of democracy traces the discourses and policy trends which surround a
political movement; and a sociology of deviance analyses the social
values in any society by which normality and its opposites are delimited.
The imperatives are that there is still little consensus about how a
country should attempt to develop in the future; there is nonetheless
an international movement towards democratization in many spheres
of public life; and there is a continuing violence and lack of peace which
threatens both of these, development and democracy.
I take the view that the function of sociology of education is both to
provide analytical tools and to promote practice in education likely to
enhance the `progress' of a society. The failure of sociology of education
to influence policymakers in many countries has been not just its
unpopular critique of government but also its perceived lack of immediate
practicality in the face of huge global shifts in the social and power
order. Sociologists of education have two immediate tasks: to locate the
power of the individual, group or country within the new global order;
and to find a value position which is internationally valid and transparent,
through which persuasively to engage in their critique of educational
policy and educational action. This chapter therefore attempts to
provide a way of reconceptualising macro and micro, structure and
142
Development, Democracy and Deviance 143
agency, which can simultaneously explain change (or stagnation) at the

system level and acknowledge power for social actors at the individual
or group level. To do this, it draws on the newer fields of chaos and
complexity theory, and contextualizes such a systems approach through
human rights theory and practice.
What brings together sociologies of development, democracy and
deviance is of course the age-old sociological question `who defines?'.
First, by what and whose criteria is a country said to be `developed',
`developing' or ùnder-developed'? Second, what are the definitions of
`democracy' by which a government or an institution can organize and
legitimize itself, or an opposition can claim rights? Third, who has the
power to define certain behaviours as normal and, therefore, to define
other behaviours (and, by extension, other people) as deviant?
These questions have often occupied different branches of sociology.
In development terms, the debate has been round the shift from mod-
ernization to dependency theory, from the traditional explanation of
third world poverty as its failure to `become modern' on Western terms,
to the neo-Marxist analysis of global inequality as resulting from the
enforced dependency of developing countries on their richer counter-
parts through the history of neo-colonialism and exploitation. More
recently, these more economic analyses have continued in the critiques
of neo-liberalism and of structural adjustment policies pursued by the
major banks and agencies. Writing on democracy has on the other hand
naturally sprung from political theory and political philosophy as well
as from policy sociology and from work on equity and social justice.
Deviance has continued to be the realm of interactionist sociology,
borrowing from criminology in its aetiology of the `deviant' and from
phenomenology in its exposition of the social construction of everyday
norms and of identification of `the other'.
It can be seen that not just a conjoining of macro and micro, but also
of economic, political and social theory, becomes important. The World
Bank has identified the trends it expects to have profound consequences
for education across the globe over the next 25 years.
The key factors are expected to be democratization, the swing to

market economies, globalization, partnerships between the state,
parents and communities and technological innovation'.
(Times Educational Supplement, 16 April 1999, p.20)
Any sociologist of education can look at that list and perceive the
inherent tensions and contestations: do market economies threaten
democratization? What happens to the voice (and language/s) of par-

ents and communities under globalization? Does technological innova-
tion promote equality and communication or does it further polarize
already divergent groups or countries? And should the World Bank
continue to be the key reality definer? Such questions require the for-
ging of a number of arenas of sociological theory, brought together
under this concept of the power to define.
Another underpinning concept is also that of discourse. Discourses of
development range from human capital theory to green movements,
from conscientization of the peasants to neo-liberal market ideologies.
They are traceable ± and often juxtaposed ± in government documents,
five-year plans, ministerial pronouncements and the mission statements
of non-governmental organizations. A variety of discourses of democ-
racy are similarly found in such national documentation, but also in the
policy statements from international agencies as far apart as UNESCO
and the World Bank. Multi-party states, freedom of opinion and opening
up of markets can all come under the heading of democracy (a range of
definitions is discussed in Davies 1999a). Discourses of deviance are often
to be found in the moral sphere, from religious groups as well as peace
organizations; more threateningly, they are also to be found in national-
ist movements, through which freedom fighters are distinguished from
terrorists, and reclamation is distinguished from invasion.
In all three fields, definitions and discourses are codified in the cur-
rent striving for indicators. Through lists of identifiable measures, coun-
tries can be compared on GDP, mortality rates and military spending; on
degree of democratization, the Gini coefficient of resource distribution
and on access to information; and on indices of corruption and abuses
of human rights. The theorising that ensues is based on correlations and
on attempts at causation: is a country able to develop because it is
democratic, or is democracy a luxury that is possible once a country
has reached a sufficient level of economic development? Is corruption a
result or a cause of poverty and stagnation in growth? Clearly there are
self-reinforcing cycles. The choice of indicators are of course not in
themselves value free, and have changed over time: in the mid 1980s,
one would find indicators of development such as àgricultural produc-
tion per male agricultural worker'. Human Development Reports now
not only avoid gender bias but include interesting measures such as the
`profile of human distress' and the `soldier-teacher ratio'. Deviance and
development are brought together not just in the corruption indices but
in comparison of issues such as pollution and of `total number of adult
reported rapes' (UNDP 1995±99).
One important benchmark and set of indicators which cut across

development, democracy and deviance are of course the international
conventions on human rights. Most countries are signatories to some or
all of such conventions, whether the original 1948 UN Declaration of
Human Rights, the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child or
more regional versions such as the 1981 African Charter on People's
Rights. What distinguishes countries is whether they have ratified these
conventions in their legal systems and therefore whether the conven-
tions are really influencing social and educational life. The DfEE in
England and Wales certainly has not ratified in any legal sense children's
right to participation. I will return to the importance of a human rights
framework later in the chapter.
Development, democracy and deviance in education
If we look at development, democracy and deviance in the realm of

education at present, we can see a number of equally urgent research
and policy agendas. In terms of development, first, there is the continu-
ing question of how or whether education can aid development (how-
ever this is defined). The research is still contested and shows no clear
linkages: if there is a correlation between level of economic develop-
ment and number of mean years of schooling, the latter may be a result
of development rather than a cause. Some studies indicate that school-
ing may help farmers to be more productive; other studies show no link
between schooling and productivity (Bennell, 1999). Literacy is seen as a
universal good, and as an indicator of human development would
demonstrate links with equity, particularly for women, minority lan-
guage speakers and those in rural areas. Yet on indicators of economic
development, associations are harder to establish: much depends on the
types of literacy, their usage and their sustainability. The current drive in
England and Wales for a heavily prescribed and orchestrated literacy and
numeracy hour, supposed to reverse the decline in competitiveness,
may be less good an economic investment than fostering a learning
culture, situational literacy and recognition of multiple intelligences.
Another significant link between education and development is the
renewed interest in UK of development education. Formerly concerned
with òther' countries, the Department for International Development
has established a working party to promote this in schools in UK, work-
ing with organizations such as the Development Education Association.
This ties in with concerns about global citizenship and environmental
issues, and in that sense may not seem a radically politicized avenue. Yet
if such an education enables young people to start to challenge foreign

aid policy and in particular military policy in terms of sales of arms to
doubtful regimes, then it may be seen as threatening. Equally radical
may be the exercise of thinking about whether the UK is itself really
developed. A reverse use of indicators is in the revealing exercise of `How
developed is your school?', which uses development indicators such as
literacy or energy consumption, as well as access to information and
basic freedoms, to enable children to explore how their school would
fare if measured in a UNDP human development report (Davies 1999b).
At least two Birmingham schools are currently using this as part of their
development education curriculum. It is interesting translating the
ìndex of corruption' into an analysis of how teachers and pupils use
power, and translating `military expenditure' into a measure of the time
and money spent on discipline and the use of conventional teacher
weapons.
In terms of democracy, secondly, there are the linked concerns of
education for democracy and democratic education, that is, whether schools
can educate tomorrow's citizens to create a more democratic society,
and simultaneously whether there can be processes within a school or
college whereby students can practise the exercise of democracy and be
citizens of the school (for example, in UK, Carr and Hartnett 1996; in
USA, Apple and Beane, 1999; internationally, Harber and Davies 1997).
In 2002 in England and Wales, the citizenship curriculum will become
compulsory for secondary schools, and advised for primary schools
(QCA 1998). Linked with a resurgence of books on citizenship education
(I located over 50 in a recent review, Davies 1999c), the policy has set in
train a rash of conferences and workshops on citizenship, together with
new training courses for teachers. Various organizations such as the
Children's Rights Office and the NSPCC are interested in how UK com-
pares with other European countries in terms of pupil citizenship of the
school, and have instigated research which explores the formal legisla-
tion of a country on pupil democracy and actual practice in schools and
classrooms. The findings are demonstrating a much clearer level of
legislation about pupil involvement in countries such as Denmark,
Sweden, Germany, Holland and Austria, with student councils as com-
pulsory and pupils legally represented on governing bodies or curricu-
lum committees (Davies and Kirkpatrick, 2000). As said, the DfEE
recommendations fall short of such legislation, and it remains to be
seen whether non-statutory advice about pupil involvement will gener-
ate an insistence on listening to pupil `voice', and the degree of sophis-
tication in the democratic process so apparent in European schools.
In deviancy terms, thirdly, there is the renewed examination of viol-

ence, now including not just bullying, but also violence by teachers in
terms of corporal punishment in many parts of the world, as well as the
more horrific violence and use of guns in schools in parts of South Africa
and USA. I have argued before for the use of deviancy theory to examine
the work and behaviour of teachers, and generated typologies of teacher
deviance (Davies 1990; Davies 1993); in USA too, there is recognition of
schools as perpetrators of systemic violence (Epp and Watkinson 1996). In
England and Wales the government concern (as well as demonising
teachers through Ofsted) is with pupil `behaviour problems' and the
renewal of `behaviour support units' in which to `treat' or contain the
disaffected. Yet in this round there is perhaps more official recognition
than hitherto of the role of the education system itself in generating
alienation, and the effects of the stranglehold of the National Curricu-
lum. There is also more support for learning conflict resolution
and mediation skills in young people, and for staff as `learning
mentors' who would act as advocates of children rather than simply
definers of behaviour. A renewed and refreshed sociology of deviance
would move beyond simple labelling theory and deviance amplification
spirals to encompass the links between national deviance (for
example from international conventions) and teacher and pupil
actions.
Jamil Salmi (1999), for example, provides a very interesting typology
of violence using four categories: direct violence (for example, homicide
and massacre); indirect violence (for example, violence by omission:
lack of protection against poverty or accidents); repressive violence
(denial of human rights); and alienating violence (racism, living in
fear). These categories can be used to examine violence along dimen-
sions of time, space and ideological boundaries, as well as to identify
harmful situations in democratic countries where, theoretically, human
rights are protected by the rule of law. Applied to education, schools can
evidence firstly direct violence in the use of corporal punishment; indir-
ect violence in terms of continuing illiteracy linked to poverty and of
discrimination; repressive violence in the form of denial of human
rights or of access to information; and alienating violence in terms of
the culture of fear, testing and examinations. Conversely, the typology
can of course enable us to see where schools act as a direct influence to
overcome violence and improve human rights, using peace education,
challenging authoritarian governments (as in Korea and Thailand), giv-
ing young people skills for productive employment, improving health
and empowering underprivileged groups.
I now turn to how to bring together these research agendas and

typologies, using the insights of complexity theory.
Theorizing a new sociology of education
The usefulness of the juxtaposition of development, democracy and

deviance (the 3Ds) is not just that they share common ground in
terms of the `who defines' question and that they clearly share concerns
about human rights. I would argue that they provide a new way into
thinking about the perennial concern about linking macro and micro,
about structure and agency. Following Giddens' work on structuration
(1984; 1990), which argued that structure and action could not form a
dualism, and that structure was inherently transformable by agency at
any point in time, have emerged concerns to be able to retain analytical
dualism (Archer, 1995; Willmott, 1999). Without a reification of struc-
ture, or returning to determinist Marxist accounts, this means being
able to see structure as having a degree of relative autonomy
which exists regardless of how actors construe or behave within it. In
order to explain how structures act differentially on different actors
(sometimes more constraining than others) we have to see a structure
as having some independent properties persisting over time and
space.
A promising avenue for resolving the issue of dualism is that of the
emerging field of chaos and complexity theory. Like weather systems, there
is the realization that educational organizations may be so complex that
they are inherently unpredictable, and their range of developmental
possibilities difficult to calculate. Chaos theory provides the recognition
that one small event can have huge effects elsewhere ± the conventional
analogy being a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world
causing a hurricane on the other. Explanatory variables are exquisitely
sensitive to very small differences or initial conditions. Such effects are
not completely random, but are the product of a highly complex chain
of events and non-linear dynamics. There are scientific and social scient-
ific laws of behaviour to explain broad trends, but they cannot predict
the behaviour of individuals. The analogy here is the sand pile: when
you pour sand on to a surface through a funnel, it will act according to
physical principles to form a conical shape. However, at certain times
small àvalanches' will appear, where cascades of sand form and rush to
the bottom. That there will be avalanches, and that in the end the sand
pile stays roughly the same shape is predictable, but not the path of an
individual grain of sand.
This is not a Foucault-like postmodernism, where everything is relat-

ive, and the social world is linguistically constructed. The aim of com-
plexity theory is to make sense of a world that exists objectively
regardless of our language games, and has a degree of autonomy outside
the people who live in it (Price, 1997). Nonetheless, complexity theory
offers a more optimistic view of agency than Foucault, where people
have difficulty breaking free of totalitarianisms of the modern era, the
discursive formations which govern our lives. Subjectivity is not a crea-
tion of language, but objectively real, an emergent property of biological
and social life. The key to this is the notion of self-organizing systems.
At the same time as chaos, is the acceptance that life is robust ± it is
continuously overbalancing and correcting itself as we do, uncon-
sciously, when walking on two legs. Complex adaptive systems (CASs)
like brains and schools need to balance order with disorder, stasis with
turbulence, stability with fluidity. This balance point has been termed
the edge of chaos. In social organization, people who are trying to satisfy
mutual needs unconsciously organize themselves into an economy
through myriad acts of buying and selling ± this, claims Waldrop
(1992), happens without anyone being in charge or consciously plan-
ning it. In the same way, atoms apparently search for minimum energy
by forming complex bonds with other, making molecules. An important
point with regard to human agency is that complexity is a property of a
variety of interactions, with the possibility to align themselves into
many different configurations. You could have a large number of com-
ponents, but if there were no possibility to interact, align or organize
themselves differently, then this would not be a complex system.
What happens is something called emergence ± a combination of ele-
ments brings about something that was not there before. CASs do not
just have high interaction, but generate outcomes which are not linearly
related to initial conditions, and have non-obvious or surprising con-
sequences. Culture emerges on a separate level of organization or
abstraction from the individuals, organizations or beliefs that constitute
it. But it also emerges in each individual through socialization, interac-
tion and experience. This is why it is so difficult to pin down something
called a `school culture', let alone make recommendations about its
ideal transfer from one institution to another.
There is a sort of Darwinian evolution about this; but there is a differ-
ence. Darwinian selection is slow, the product of random mutations very
gradually gaining ground. In the emergence arising from complex adapt-
ive systems, this can be relatively sudden, a `spontaneous order'. Appar-
ently, features such as the eye are difficult to explain through random
mutation. Systems do not usually evolve themselves into nothingness,

but typically add new features on. Importantly in educational terms, the
mechanism for selection is communicative success. Some types are more
flexible than others and allow for better adjustment to environmental
realities. This sounds like the survival of the fittest, that is, in social terms
the promotion of the strong or privileged. Yet the point about a self-
organizing system is that it seeks balance. This leads to the concept
of `rupture': systems branch and bifurcate, but after three bifurcations,
most systems will have exploded into far-from-stable non-linearity. For
example, we know that the rich get richer; but if income differences
become twice, then four times, then eight, then sixteen times greater
between rich and poor, chaos, in the form of non-normative behaviour
(that is, riots) is much more likely. The system has to adjust again. Here
we see the link to catastrophe theory, where there is abrupt change. This
has been applied to war, revolution, prison riots and settlement patterns,
as well as curriculum change. Whether one thinks the National Curri-
culum is a catastrophe is interesting, but it certainly represented an
abrupt departure for education in England and Wales.
Between different systems are `boundaries' and `boundary condi-
tions', with different types of feedback and feedforward between them.
For example, the family produces children; a schooling system is devised
dependent on the family being prepared to devolve its responsibility for
education; in turn an administrative system is devised to control and
supply the schooling system. The family could exist without the
schools, but not the other way round. One could not have teachers
without learners, managers without someone or something to manage.
There is, therefore, a `threshold' between the two systems, where change
clearly effects the next level and where there is asymmetric dependency.
Behaviour depends on feedback: does the family still want to send
children to school? How do pupils respond to a teacher? Do `the man-
aged' agree to appraisal or to implement the literacy hour? The signific-
ant feature of non-linear dynamics for educational systems and schools
is that there is feedback in which internal or external changes to a
system produce an amplifying effect. A yawn, epidemic or lifestyle can
spread through a population. Courtney Brown's analysis of US environ-
mental policy includes data on numerous variables such as environ-
mental degradation, political structure, citizen attitudes and electoral
outcomes. It shows how political and policy choices in the USA can
produce environmental damage across the globe. Such analyses also
show how arms escalation also produces increased tension and the
likelihood of war (Eve et al., 1997).
Complexity and change
Complexity theory has great potential, therefore, in our quest for a

sociology of development, democracy and deviance ± both in its analy-
tical power and its implications for change. `Structure' and àgency' can
be replaced with the notions of adaptive system and communication. We
can look at both schools and countries as complex adaptive (or mala-
daptive) systems that rely for survival on feedback, feedforward and
non-linear change. This has parallels with Giddens' notion of structures
needing agents to reproduce social rules on an everyday basis, but it has
greater dynamism and recognition of the importance of timing involved
in reproduction or transformation, in terms of the system's current
degree of stasis or turbulence. There are semantic problems with the
notion of `structure' in its implications of something static; the notion
of a `system' on the other hand is not the old structural functionalist
simple view of a sum of interrelated parts, but something much more
fluid and active its search for information.
Admittedly there is still a danger of reifying such a `system' as existing
outside the people who constitute it, yet in the notion of an adaptive
system, there are the avenues for individual and group influence. These
are not `spaces' in an imperfect structure, but an essential part of the
ongoing organization. If, like a brain, a CAS relies on constant feedback
loops, then every person in a system is not only capable of contributing
but is necessary in providing that data. Àgency' implies the need some-
how to `do' something, but `communication' ± rightly in the informa-
tion age ± simply relies on voice or silence. This gives much more
potential than the old role theory notion of àctors' or the newer ver-
sions of àgents'. You do not have necessarily to `be empowered' in order
to create a butterfly effect. The smallest child provides feedback every
minute of the day. The dualism is then of what I shall from here on term
`systems' and `voicers'.
Complexity theory would then be easy with the possibility of ànalyt-
ical dualism'. The notion of boundaries and boundary conditions, with
àsymmetric dependencies' between different levels fits well with a view
of structures and strata as irreducible at moments of time, from the level
of individual, to the school and to the education system. Yet complexity
theory provides more potential for understanding gradual and sudden
inroads into the workings of the levels. There is, as said, an evolutionary
principle, that a system `learns' from mistakes and successes and has a
memory. The difference from a Darwinian theory is the jumps, the
sudden emergence, not explainable through random mutation. Marxist
theories of control are containable within complexity theory, given the

emphasis on different levels in a system, and different dependencies;
that the revolution by the proletariat did not appear is also explicable,
given that simple cause-and-effect and fluidity in boundaries are also
features.
Where chaos and complexity theory needs development in sociologi-
cal terms is in a theory of power. Significantly, the control of complex
adaptive systems is often very dispersed and decentralized. Brains have
no master neurone and economies have a frustrating tendency to defy
attempts at centralized control. Is this then an apologia for neo-liberal
free market ideologies? It would be, except that free markets are of
course not free, and still function in the interests of some group or
some enterprize. One needs to compute into the model of a human
complex adaptive system all the human emotions and patternings of
greed and fear as well as love and satisfaction. (Incidentally, ants are at a
greater degree of social evolution than humans, and are more skilled at
non-violent conflict resolution.)
Complexity theory was originally a theory from maths and physics,
and has itself to be àdapted' to be applicable to the social world. This is
not to anthropomorphize a `system' ± it is just that we tend to describe
this in human terms of intentionality, a system `trying' to survive, in
that this is how we view ourselves and find it difficult to describe any
other way. As McFadden (1995) argued, we need a theoretical framework
which allows the discussion of both agency and social structure without
rationality being ascribed to the system. Nor is it a return to the notion
of a society as an òrganism'. Giddens rejected naturalistic analogies;
and as Willmott confirms, education cannot be thought of as a magnetic
field of forces, nor as analogous to the lungs of a body/state: `such
naturalistic or biologistic thinking would now be laughed out of soci-
ological court' (1999: p.6). Yet complexity theory, while beginning from
biological and physical modelling, does not simply provide parallels and
analogies for the social world. In its merging of the social and the
physical, in the effects of human agency on the natural world in a
complex system, it has explanatory and predictive as well as merely
descriptive value.
Communication, knowledge, memory and modelling
Giddens and structuration theory have been criticized as being relatively

silent about the likely direction of social change, or analysis of
where change is possible (Shilling 1992). While complexity theory by
definition would have even less precision about change, (and in that
sense cannot be accused of being a `grand theory' or narrative) it has
suppositions which could be tested empirically: that intentionally
increasing the amount of communication and feedback in a system
would lead to creative turbulence and emergence. This is not just the
tackling of Bernstein's (1990) `relay' of power and meaning, the
pedagogic discourse, but (and largely ignored by Bernstein) the reverse
flow of information from the subjects of the discourse to the teachers,
the mutual exchange of (albeit different formations) of `knowledge' and
information. Oppressive class relations will not be altered simply by
changing teaching methods, transmission codes or language, but by
enabling sufficient channels in a school for articulation of the student
voice ± and building on this voice. This of course is risky, and requires
new modelling; but schools which have, for example, experimented
with student councils, with pupils being involved in, say, teacher
appointments, have expressed surprise at both the capabilities and
creativities of pupils. The key point about feedback is that it must be
acted upon: it is not enough to `give students a voice' and then ignore
the implications.
As Willmott admits, Giddens' notion of `discursive penetration' is an
important corrective to the extremes of structural Marxism and normat-
ive functionalism, for actors are knowledgeable in their day-to-day
activities. But he claims that `they are not as knowledgeable as Giddens
would have us believe'. The aim of sociology is to provide objective
accounts of social reality than can and indeed do conflict with actors'
accounts ± for example, objectively false accounts of working-class
opportunities, or reasons for unemployment.
Yet even if all of the unemployed had full discursive penetration of

the capitalist social relations that are responsible for their inability to
find work, such knowledgeability may be of little import, for collect-
ive action may not issue in the sorts of structural change that is
required to provide full employment.
(Giddens 1999:16)
This is the Freirian dilemma, in developing country terms: does the

`conscientization' of the peasants, and their recognition of their dom-
ination, actually result in a change in those oppressed relations? It may
be that people use their new found literacy to simply move up the
hierarchy and become part of the dominator elite. Knowledge alone
does not create change: an adaptive system may simply incorporate
new knowledges into new strata (as we have seen with information
technology experts). What creates emergence is feedforward as well as
feedback, when `voicers' use their knowledge or literacy to create rip-
ples, individually or collectively, when they provide sufficient informa-
tion to lead to new learning and adaptation for a system.
Interestingly, debates on structuration and the portrayal of change in
complexity theory both use the concept of èmergence', although with
different meanings. Willmott argues, unlike Shilling, that structure is an
èmergent' level or stratum of social reality, placing real limits on what
teachers do. If, as Shilling asserts, `change is an ever present possibility'
then explicating `why the majority of teachers teach, why the majority
of pupils turn up every day and learn and why the Conservative govern-
ment was able to steamroller through the National Curriculum remains
an impossibility' (1999:9). Pupils and teachers do resist; but resistance
carries `structured penalties'. Such penalties are only possible on the
basis of existing social relations (teacher±pupil, headteacher±teacher) ±
they do not inhere within the properties of the individual concerned.
Structure has its own effects, since it remains, despite a turnover of
occupants. What complexity theory is interested in (if this not to reify
a theory) is a second order emergence: how the actions or voices or
`discursive penetrations' of people somehow combine to create a new
emergence, different from the sum total of its constituent parts, and
once again, not reducible. As I write comes the announcement from
USA that for the millennium, Third World debt is to be written off
(albeit in a staged fashion). The pop group U2 is being interviewed
about their role in this. It is difficult to grasp the suddenness and full
implications such an announcement, still less that an ephemeral music
group could have been àgentic' in this. Yet a very complex combination
of different forces and discourses will have combined to create this
moment of emergence, shaking the structure of first world domination
over third world economic spending.
Key concepts within complexity theory to explain stability and sudden
change are memory and modelling. History and tradition are far more
powerful determinants of how a society is organized than economic or
political `forces' that 19th-century social theory reduced to social `laws'
(Turner, 1997). Behaviour is determined by memory of past interactions,
with a `feed forward' to control the next set of interactions. This is not to
say that organizations should remain the same, or should claim the right
to act in certain ways because of `culture' or `tradition', but that there is
usefully a constant process of analyzing whether or why things worked in
the past and what else might be needed in the light of predictions
about the future. Institutions need to develop and surface their mem-
ories.
CASs, secondly, themselves apparently constantly make predictions
based on their various internal models of the world. These are not
passive models, but can come to life and èxecute' in order to produce
behaviour in the system. Obviously, efficient organizations try con-
sciously to predict by making a business or marketing plan. Models are
also often ìnside the head', as when a shopper tries to imagine how a
new couch might look in the living room, or when a timid employee
tries to imagine the consequences of telling off his boss (Waldrop,
1992:177). Anything that we call a `skill' or èxpertise' is an implicit
model ± or more precisely a huge set of operating procedures that have
been inscribed on the nervous system and refined by years of experience.
But, as Waldrop asks, where do the models come from? Who pro-
grammes the programmer? Ultimately the answer is no-one. This was
Darwin's great insight, that an agent can improve on its internal models
without any paranormal guidance at all. It simply tries the models out
and sees how they work in the real world ± and ± if it survives the
experience ± adjusts the model to do better next time. This is the basis
of cognition and learning, and hence the hallmark of the `learning
organization'.
A superb example of the power of modelling ± and of deviance ±
comes from the Albanian `parallel' education system engaged in during
the 1990s, arising from refusal to participate in the Serb defined and
controlled education system. Kosovar Albanians set up an entire system,
from early years to university, which `paralleled' the official system, and
took place in people's houses or cellars, paid for by a tax and by outside
donations (Davies 1999d). In Ofsted terms, it would not have been a
`quality' system, but it had a number of agendas. The ìnternationaliza-
tion' of the problem was a key strategy, showing that the status of
Kosova was not just an internal question for Serbia. As the historian Noel
Malcolm points out, by setting up the institutions of a separate republic,
the Albanians of Kosovo have engaged in a strategy of political às if':
To behave as if Kosovo were not part of Serbia might seem, in the

short term, sheer make-believe; but if the strategy were persisted in
for long enough, foreign governments might eventually feel obliged
to admit that they were the ones who were engaging in fiction when
they continued to treat Kosovo as a mere region of the Serbian
state.
(1998: 348)
This was indeed borne out by the eventual intervention of NATO.
Human rights and transformative deviance
In the end, however, we do not need to privilege either structure or

agency, system or communication, and can continue to research at
different sites (Shilling 1992). If we see a CAS as patterned sets of com-
munications and complex feedback loops, then we can look at micro
and macro levels in terms of degrees of difference in both access to
information and how far voices are heard and accepted. In the end, it
is human beings who control the communication flows; it seems
obvious that people are constrained by the communication and dis-
course available, but that they are simultaneously central to the onward
transmission of that communication and discourse. It seems pointless
to argue over whether one approach is `weak' on structure or `weak' on
agency; our question is where communication is located and how con-
trol at one level or site impacts on behaviour at another. Seeing `the
labour market' as a complex adaptive system is not to deny human
agency; it would form a complex adaptive system precisely because of
people's fluidity in their understandings and communication of it, and
the possibility to align themselves differently within it. Do gender
relations constitute a CAS? Yes, in that, again, there is always the possi-
bility for people to align themselves differently, as has happened
continuously in the past; yet whether there has been sufficient turbul-
ence to bring a gender system to the edge of chaos in most countries
would be a point of argument, even if feminists might claim some
sort of èmergence'. This is again where deviance and resistance is so
crucial.
What resistance theory fails to capture is the variation in the

responses to schooling which arise from the intersection of student
and teachers perspectives, perception and expectations, particularly
when such intersections involve a variety of modes of masculinity,
femininity, class, race and ethnicity. Different combinations of these
cultural modes allow different patterns of resistance and action in the
school context. An alternative interpretation then of the evidence on
student resistance is that students from certain kinds of backgrounds
have experiences of schooling which restrict their opportunity to
extend their knowledge. The response to this form of schooling for
many students is to resist it.
(McFadden 1995 p.297)
Complexity theory is powerful here in two ways: first, in the recogni-

tion of the search for knowledge and second in recognition of recombin-
ant phenomena, that is, how deviance is not reducible to a simple class
based, or gender based resistance, but draws on complex forms of rea-
lignment. This recalls some earlier work on pupil deviance, where I was
initially puzzled by the huge range of scripts that girls could draw on,
and the lack of predictable alliances (Davies, 1984). When one looks at
the creative and infinitely elaborate ways we all have to draw on cultural
and social resources, one wonders how patterns become possible, and
CASs survive. They are not constantly on the edge of chaos. They survive
of course because of mutual dependencies, and sufficient shared com-
municative competences and communicative histories to preclude the
need for constant negotiation and expression. Here Walker's (1993)
notion of social structures not as determining èxternal objects' but as
`sets of options' is still relevant, even if pedagogic inequality breeds a
restricted knowledge base which restricts the options and possibilities
that people see for themselves.
This is why we need a new sociology of deviance which comes off the
relativist fence to distinguish `transformative' from `reproductive' resist-
ance. The latter characterized the girls in this above-mentioned study,
whereby their resistance to schooling merely in the end confirmed their
position in the working-class order, as well as in the gender order.
Resistance studies, in the tradition of Willis (1977) onwards, have
tended to focus on such confirmation of class identity. Transformative
deviance on the other hand is that which actually changes individual
life or collective opportunity. A Swedish colleague and I engaged in a
study to trace the ìnfluence' of girls, distinguishing this from resistance,
in attempting to locate means by which girls, acting collectively, and
using various sources and resources, are able to effect change in their
school or class (Ohrn and Davies 1999). A key concept from complexity
theory is that of `mutants' ± those people or configurations who disrupt
the `normal' feedback flows to create `self-organized criticality'. This is
where deviance comes in, as we see the possibility of the creative mutant
who starts a process breaking down the previous equilibrium; of ques-
tioning a new critical path.
Particularly in linking development and democracy it is inadvisable to
regress to relativism. One particular phenomenon of global èmergence'
has been the growth of conventions on human rights. While there are
critiques of the universality of human rights, and the accusation that
although the UDHR was ratified by the UN General Assembly, the world-
view it represents is historically grounded in European traditions, it
nonetheless has had huge global implications. Despite sharp differences

among delegates from North and South, the 1993 World Conference on
Human Rights reaffirmed the universal, indivisible and inalienable nat-
ure of human rights, including that of the right to development (Eade,
1998). A political sociology of deviance might examine the real turbul-
ence in a system, but use a rights based approach: one could in fact
distinguish not two but three types of deviance, in terms of its effects:
those who deviate from the norms of human rights (negative deviance);
those who deviate from oppressive rules, but reproduce the status quo in
other ways (reproductive deviance); and those who deviate from oppres-
sive rules to claim rights, and in so doing create positive change (trans-
formative deviance).
To judge which is which links with a central feature of democracy and
of a human rights approach to development, that of accountability. Leys
(1996), in his critical account The Rise and Fall of Development Theory
concluded that for the survival of poorer countries, a more open global
market for goods and capital was required which would have to be more
representative of, and accountable to, people (as opposed to wealth) than
most current global institutions: `For all countries of the world, recaptur-
ing control over their own destinies requires the re-establishment of
social control over capital and the resubordination of markets to
social purposes' (p.194). The current de facto colonization of Africa by
aid consortia, World Bank structural adjustment teams, the UN High
Commission for Refugees, the UN Food Programme and a host of other
agencies could also be transformed:
it could give way to a new long-term, open and accountable system of

collaboration between domestic and supranational political leaders
and public servants, based on principles of mutual interest in creating
the economic and social preconditions for a new and more genuine
sovereignty. . . in some sectors more scope will need to be given to
markets, in others more attention will have to be paid to the con-
struction of non-market institutions that are resistant to politiciza-
tion and corruption and yield socially efficient results.
(1996:195)
I would argue that some version of democracy ± while not perfect ± is

the least worst way we know of providing the maximum feedback,
openness and accountability. People are legitimately able to voice their
opinions, to remove the maladaptive or authoritarian from office, and
to question the levels and hierarchies of the system. Those in power
have agreed mechanisms for justifying their actions, establishing what

people think on a systematic basis and having to adapt accordingly.
Schools are of course smaller CASs, but with the same features: the
need for constant feedback and feedforward, and implicitly, the need for
a transparent and democratic set of processes which allow for such
information flows. Technology can provide management information
systems, and sophisticated ways of amassing data on pupil inputs and
outcomes; what many schools still lack are DIMS, or democracy informa-
tion management systems, those regularized transfers of accountability,
ways of conveying and sharing qualitative information about pupil (as
well as teacher) feelings, voices, perceptions, understandings, and, most
crucially, suggestions for improvement. Perhaps another definition of
developmental democracy is self-organizing criticality: processes of
accountability are not just revealing information, about checks and
balances, but about learning from success and failure.
`Voices' in development
This leads to the need to identify the sites for such accountability. Clearly
there are different levels of `voice', from organizations down to the
individual. National development requires a `dense web' of ìntermediate
institutions' (banks, financial and technical services, training, and infra-
structure of all kinds,) that the market needs but does not itself provide
(Leys 1996). Sklar (1996) has a different classification of `developmental
estates of the realm', the classification of groups that contribute to
national development. His theory of developmental democracy parallels
Durkheim's identification of òrganic solidarity' in the suggestion that
developmental democracy is founded on a powerful norm of political
conduct, namely accountability, which is manifest in two ways ± first,
organized groups of all kinds ± social, economic, political, professional,
administrative and others ± are accountable to each other in accordance
with settled rules of interactive conduct; second, groups promote the
interests of their members when leaders are accountable to the followers
by which they are chosen. But Sklar questions a `whole system' view:
In all countries, democracy is manifest in diverse forms, or fragments,

which reinforce one another in the production of developmental
effects. This conception of democracy ìn parts' is an alternative to
whole-system conceptions of democracy that are neither realistic nor
scientific, as opposed to ideological.
(1996: 40)
Such fragments might be freedom of the press, or guaranteed health

services, or equal protection of the law, or elements of industrial demo-
cracy.
At first sight, this rejection of a whole system approach seems to lie at
odds with a CAS analysis. Yet in fact it fits very well. The `fragments' of
democracy are the ways to create turbulence, the dynamism that
characterizes a society that develops. The phrase is the `self-organizing
system'. As Leftwich points out:
to expect that heavy doses of externally imposed conditionality will

yield either good governance in the managerial sense of stable demo-
cracy in the liberal pluralist sense ± let alone sustained economic
development . . . seems naive to say the least. The only social process
that can both institute and sustain both good governance and demo-
cracy is the process we know as politics which I defined earlier as
consisting of all the processes of conflict, cooperation and negotiation
involved in the use, production and distribution of resources.
(1996:37)
This perhaps reflects Manji's (1998) argument that the development

discourse has served to deflect the more radical, rights-based forms of
mobilization that spearheaded the liberation struggles in many count-
ries. There has been a `depoliticization of poverty', often exacerbated by
the work of NGOs claiming to be neutral in their assistance. As Eade
(1998) summarizes:
Instead of exercising their rights to participate in shaping their societ-

ies, people are at best offered the opportunity to participate in top-
down development projects that all too often act as a vehicle by
which their existing rights and values are still further undermined.
(p.9)
If one translates the above into the school, one finds a similar denial of
rights, as children are at best offered the opportunity to participate in a
top-down curriculum. There has to be a repoliticization of both poverty
and schooling, with a rights, not an aid focus.
Trying to catch the rain
One child ± identified as deviant, naturally ± from some Birmingham

research on literacy and truancy was explaining to an interviewer from
the Basic Skills Agency his continual absence from school. He reflected
his despair in understanding teachers, as follows:
In some lessons, the words just come at you all the time. You can only
get some. It's like trying to catch the rain.
The insight from complexity theory is that all feedback is useful feed-
back in some way or other, and the powerful image expressed by this so-
called illiterate child would be significant information. We should listen
to our deviants more ± not just for what they tell us about the reasons for
their personal mutation, but for what they tell us about the system and
how they may be impacting on that system. The sub-title of this whole
chapter could well be `trying to catch the rain'. Just as in a brain, with
neurons firing in all directions, schools and nations are a mass of poten-
tial information flows, reflecting and bouncing from every cell/partici-
pant. The distinction between a brain and a fragile state is not just the
degree and speed of the transmission, but that ± unlike brains ± fragile
states and fragile schools choose to ignore vital information. All mem-
bers are reflectors, and many can be trained to reflect precisely the
messages that are fired at them. But a CAS needs deviants, mutants,
reflexors who angle things differently, who generate different sets of
information and fire them at different recipients. We need a sociology
of turbulence, which can explain dynamic change, upheaval and posi-
tive emergence as well as what appears to be the collapse of a system.
A three Ds sociology then combines a policy sociology ± the analysis
of the top-down ± and a deviancy sociology ± the bottom-up small but
transformative effect. We know that power is asymmetric, but also that
the exercise of power needs a response from those being governed or
controlled. My own field of working with international students, tea-
chers and managers fortunately provides a host of examples of the
butterfly effect, ranging from the inspector who returned to their coun-
try to instigate a new inspection policy in the Gambia, to the 16-year-
old school students' union representative from Denmark who came to a
conference in England, whose participants then, impressed by her elo-
quence and agency, put pressure on DfEE to introduce more democracy
into the system. Chains of events must be seen not as `constrained' by
the system, but as moving about, bouncing from one voicer to another,
like balls turning on the lights in a pinball machine.
Put simply, then, in order to develop, a country needs creative and
positive turbulence arising from a complex communication system;
politically and educationally, democracy is the best way we know
to ensure that communication; and the study of deviance is a key tool in

establishing who holds the power to define normality or chaos, repro-
duction or transformation. Structuration theory cannot easily explain
change and emergence; complexity theory provides a framework to
understand education systems and social systems as complex adaptive
ones, with the adaptation requiring mutants/deviants and non-linear
dynamics. Analytically, complexity theory provides strong explanatory
and predictive power; but strategically, education also needs a value
component; and a human rights framework is what gives sense and
life to the 3Ds of development, democracy and deviance, and locates
the type of emergence that we want.
8
The Sociology of Comparative
Education
Lawrence Saha
The comparative study of educational systems has a long history. The

field can be traced to the early 19th century when it became common
for European governments to send emissaries abroad to find out how
education was carried out in other countries. About the same time the
practice became more structured and of interest to academics, as well as
practitioners and policymakers, and the subject of comparative educa-
tion came into being (Epstein, 1994; Holms, 1965).
The status of comparative education has frequently been debated in
academic circles, in particular whether it should be considered an inter-
disciplinary field of study or a discipline in its own right. Comparative
education can be defined simply as the study of the variations in educa-
tional systems and processes, and how education relates to wider social
factors and forces. In this respect it is an academic and interdisciplinary
field of study, and includes scholars from historical, philosophical,
sociological and anthropological backgrounds, to name but a few
(Epstein, 1994).
Just as comparative education incorporates interdisciplinary interests,
it also serves a multiplicity of academic and policy related functions.
The comparative study of education has provided a rich source of
knowledge about how education functions in different social, political
and cultural contexts. In this respect, the search for more than descrip-
tions, but rather for universal educational principals has been greatly
enhanced by comparative educational research (Keeves and Adams,
1994; Paulston, 1994). In addition, however, comparative education
research has provided the basis for national debates about educational
issues in many countries. It has similarly provided the basis for guide-
lines and models in the development of educational policy and plan-
ning programmes. Finally, it has had enormous input into the lending
163
and funding programmes of international organizations, such as the

World Bank (Altbach, 1991), and national aid organizations such as
NORAD (Norway) and SIDA (Sweden).
This interdisciplinarity of comparative education is also reflected in
the methodology used in the gathering and analysis of comparative
educational data. Comparative education research has been both human-
istic and scientific, and quantitative and qualitative (Keeves and Adams,
1994). A recent survey of research strategies in comparative education,
focusing specifically on three journals, Comparative Education Review,
Comparative Education, and the International Journal of Educational
Development, found interesting shifts in research direction from the
1950s to the 1990s (Rust et al., 1999). While most research published
during this period tended to be qualitative in nature, the authors noted
an increase in quantitative research from the 1960s to the period
1985±95. The authors also noted that earlier research tended to focus
on the developed countries, while research in the same three journals in
the 1985±95 period was much broader and focused on both developed
and developing countries. The authors conclude that the field of
comparative education is `methodologically fragmented and pluralistic'
(Rust et al., 1999: 107). It is clearly a changing field.
One growing feature of comparative education has been its emphasis
on Third World education, and in particular, the role that education plays
in furthering the economic and social development of these countries
(Altbach, 1991). Holms (1965), in the early period of the establishment of
comparative education as an academic field, noted its role in educational
policy and planning. Against the backdrop of the reconstruction
period of the Second World War, he observed that the comparative
study of education identified how education could exercise a role in
the technological, political and economic development of societies.
Comparative education and the relationship between education and
development have not traditionally been seen to be parts of the socio-
logy of education. Sociologists of education have conducted consider-
able research in developing countries on educational issues related to
development. However much of this research has tended to be identi-
fied with comparative education rather than the sociology of education.
Thus much of the research in the sociology of education and develop-
ment can be more easily found in comparative education journals than
in sociology of education journals. This is a tendency that will probably
continue.
Having said this, however, the relationship between education and
socio-economic development, in both industrial and less-industrialized
Sociology of Comparative Education 165
countries, has been extensively researched from a sociological perspect-

ive. In many respects, this body of research has had considerable impact
on third world development policies where education has been
involved, especially through the impact of bodies like the World Bank,
Unesco and the Asia Development Bank. It is also true to say that the
sociology of education and development is among the more interdiscip-
linary subfields of the sociology of education. Thus much of the
research in this field draws upon research in the economics of develop-
ment, the politics of development and the social psychology of devel-
opment. In this respect, the field of education and development is rich
in its theoretical and methodological contribution to sociology gener-
ally. But because this research is comparative in nature, much of com-
parative educational research is a part of the sociology of education
generally.
Theories in comparative education
There are no theories that are unique to comparative education. This is

not to say, however, that the field is without theory. In fact researchers
have tended to borrow from a wide range of theories, ranging from
human capital theory, to critical theory and postmodern theory.
Paulston (1994), who noted that the early history of the field was
descriptive and inductive, has produced a recent description of the
theoretical developments in comparative education. Since the 1970s
he argues that the field has become more heterogeneous in its use of
deductive theories and methodologies. Furthermore, he points out that
the theoretical development of comparative studies of education and
development have shifted ` . . . in knowledge framing, from the traditional
social, behavioral and Marxist science models to those of language,
culture and the interpretive humanities' (Paulston, 1994: 928).
The issues in these debates rested on the assumption that a unitary
theoretical approach, or theoretical orthodoxy, within the field was
somehow necessary and desirable for scientific legitimacy. However, as
is true in sociology generally, theories specify the focus of study, so that
theories do not compete among themselves except insofar as the foci of
the theories are seen to have high or low priority in research and policy.
The view that theoretical approaches might be complementary rather
than competitive began to emerge in the late 1980s (Keeves, 1988), and
an argument for paradigmatic pluralism in education research generally
was put forward at the end of the century (HuseÂn, 1997).
In this context, the following sections provide a brief coverage of the

main theoretical paradigms, both their strengths and weaknesses, which
can be found in comparative education at the end of the 1990s. These
theories are presented under four major paradigmatic headings, called
perspectives: neo-liberal perspectives, radical perspectives, critical per-
spectives and postmodernist perspectives.
Neo-liberal perspectives
Perhaps one of the most dominant theoretical perspectives has been
human capital theory. Human capital theory postulates that education
contributes to socio-economic development by improving the quality of
human capital, and it directs attention to the study of improvements in
human productivity through education. Sociological research guided by
human capital theory tends to focus on various forms of rate-of-return
or cost-benefit analyses. From this perspective, sociological research into
the relationship between education and development overlaps consid-
erably with economic research.
A second dominant theoretical perspective in the study of education
and development, and one that is more sociological, is modernization
theory. Modernization theory assumes that education promotes socio-
economic development by creating people who will hold modern values
and thus behave in a modern manner. Sociologists who take this per-
spective tend to focus attention on the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours
of individuals, and they argue that a primary purpose of education is to
foster the acquisition of a modern outlook by individuals in society.
Both the human capital theory and modernization theory reflect a
neo-liberal ideology and since the mid 1950s have dominated much
research and policy in the education and development field. They also
have been extensively criticized for being largely Western-centered and
too capitalistic in orientation. (For a thorough criticism of these the-
ories, see FaÈgerlind and Saha, 1989.) Still within the neo-liberal frame-
work, the theoretical perspective which has emerged in the last decade,
and which looks like dominating much of the research and policy in the
education and development field is globalization theory.
Globalization theory, and its variations, assumes that the local, re-
gional and national boundaries of social institutions are breaking down
and a `new order' of international competition based on flexible produc-
tion is emerging at a world level. With respect to issues related to
education and development, globalization theory focuses attention on
the acquisition of flexible worker and management skills. The idea
behind this theoretical approach is that in the new global environment,
flexible and life-long education assume greater importance so that a

country's workforce is able to make quick and effective adjustments
to the development of new technologies and meet new industrial
needs.
Radical perspectives
A second group of theories that are important in the sociology of educa-
tion and development take a more cautious approach regarding the role
of education in the development process. Those who use these theories
to analyze the development process focus their attention on inequalities
in society as a measure of development itself. They regard education as
much a cause of those inequalities as well as a way of overcoming them.
A primary concern with theorists within this perspective is how to
reform education based on Western capitalist models so that the perpe-
tuation of privilege and wealth through the education system does not
continue. Two theories which fall within this perspective, and which are
to some extent still influential in the education and development field,
are conflict theory and dependency theory.
Conflict theory, like modernization theory, is eminently sociological.
It has its sociological roots in the writings of Weber and Marx and is
based on the assumption that conflict is a normal condition of society,
and that conflict has its origins in the domination of one group or
groups by another group or groups. For Weber these groups can be
defined in terms of class, status and power, whereas for Marx they can
be defined in terms of economic class alone. The Marxist version of
conflict, both in its original orthodox form or in its newer manifestations
in reproduction and resistance theory, assumes that conflict is
manifested in forms of exploitation and oppression.
Conflict theorists have as their ideal model of development the attain-
ment of a society which has a high level of equity, an open opportunity
structure and no discrimination or exploitation. In order to bring this
about, an educational system that breaks the cycle of reproduction is
needed. This implies the possibility of schools that are ideologically and
culturally integrated into the subgroups they serve, and also the possi-
bility of some level of affirmation of action in schools to encourage
students from disadvantaged or oppressed backgrounds.
Dependency theory shares many of the assumptions of conflict the-
ory, except that the major focus on development is on the attainment of
self-determination, and social and economic sustainability. Those who
adhere to dependency theory argue that an obstacle in the development
process is the social, cultural and economic dependency of one society
on another. Thus a major source of the absence of development lies

outside a society and on external rather than internal factors.
Given these assumptions the role of education is much the same as for
the conflict theorists. As long as the educational system operates in the
interests of maintaining dependency, it will serve as an obstacle to devel-
opment. Education can reinforce dependency by producing graduates
who will be more committed and oriented toward success in jobs and
careers which are not in the best interests of their own society. In a similar
fashion, their political views are such that they are committed to main-
taining liaisons with external political figures. Therefore, from within the
dependency perspective the main role of education is to help break the
dependency cycle. One way of promoting this break is through con-
sciousness raising and political mobilization, and a sense of citizenship
which values autonomy and sustainability rather than dependence.
The critical perspective

A critical approach to issues of education and development actually
incorporates two theoretical paradigms, namely that of critical theory
and that of post-colonial theory. These approaches are not often overtly
espoused in education and development research. Nevertheless, they do
appear implicitly in much of the education and development literature.
The basis of critical theory implies ùncovering hidden assumptions
and debunking their claims to authority' (Abercrombie et al., 1994: 94).
The theory traces its origins back to the writings of the Frankfurt School
which was concerned with unmasking forms of oppression in society
and, thereby, bring about the emancipation of members and groups.
Those who adopt this theoretical approach in the study of education
tend to see schooling as a source of oppression, primarily through the
`hidden curriculum' and the process of `deskilling'. The consequence of
these forms of oppression is the perpetuation of the exploitation of the
disadvantaged in society.
The model of development which the critical theorists espouse is the
construction of a society in which there is freedom from exploitation
and hidden sources of oppression and exploitation. This can be
achieved, it is thought, by introducing into the curriculum the learning
of empowerment skills, which includes citizenship and civic education.
In the development context, the writings of Paulo Friere and the notion
of `conscientization' has been seen as a key concept in this liberation or
ùnmasking' process (Friere, 1970, 1973). In the third world, literacy
programmes and various forms of popular education are manifestations
of this type of application of critical theory (Evans, 1997).
Somewhat related to critical theory, and still within the critical para-
digm, is post-colonial theory. The notion of post-colonialism is probably
best traced back to the publication of Said's Orientalism (1979) where it
was argued that only by understanding oriental culture as understood
and experienced by orientals, can one understand the European culture
which produced it. Thus the post-colonial perspective has entered into
the education and development literature in attempts to free the school
curriculum in many third world countries from the cultural dominance
of outside influence. Thus a focus on national culture, national identity,
national consciousness and national self-confidence are all a part of the
application of a postcolonial perspective to education and development.
Postmodernist perspectives
The final theoretical approach which sometimes is found in sociological
studies of education in development is that of postmodernism. Post-
modernism is an intellectual perspective that holds that the dominance
of an overarching belief in `scientific rationality' and a unitary theory of
progress and development has come to an end. In its place is a stronger
reliance on culture, signs, images and a plurality of viewpoints about
social forces and social change. In this respect, postmodernists question
whether rational thought and technological advance alone can guaran-
tee development and progress.
The postmodernists adhere to a high level of social and intellectual
pluralism and high tolerance. In this context, the postmodernists are
similar to the critical theorists in that they seek the liberation of intel-
lectual pursuits from the dominance of the `modern' set of cultural
beliefs, such as theories of development and progress. The postmoder-
nists instead advocate a plurality of ideas, with no clear policy implica-
tions for the state, because under postmodernist conditions, the state
loses control over knowledge. Thus for the postmodernists, it does not
make sense to speak of development in the conventional `modernist'
sense. The role of education in a development context, then, is to
subject all knowledge to criticism (deconstructionism) and accept a
plurality of knowledge systems.
These theories, to a greater or lesser degree, represent the various
approaches which one can find in the education and development
literature, in both Western developed countries as well as third world
countries. Each theoretical approach contains its own set of assumptions
about development, and how education should be structured to attain
development goals. During the 1960s and 1970s the dominant para-
digms were the human capital and modernization theories. However,
as we enter the next millennium, there is much more a plurality of

theoretical approaches, each providing its own unique strategy for the
utilization of education in bringing about development objectives.
The three dimensions of comparative education and studies

of development
In addition to theoretical perspectives, the link between education and

development needs to be seen in terms of three sociological dimensions,
namely, the economic, the social, and the political. This in itself repres-
ents a departure from the conventional view of education and the
development process, namely that development was primarily an eco-
nomic matter. However, in recent years there is an increasing acceptance
that the contribution that education makes to the development process
is much wider, and incorporates not only the economic, but also the
social and political. The following sections will treat each in turn.
The neo-classical view: education and human capital

The most common understanding of education's role in the develop-
ment process is in terms of its contribution to economic development.
Models of economic development have been dominant since the emer-
gence of the 18th-century theories of progress put forward by Adam
Smith, John Stuart Mill and others. Theories of economic progress agree
that one, but not the main, component of progress is the human dimen-
sion, that is, the quality of the working population, which in turn
contributes to economic development.
The underlying assumptions in this link between education and eco-
nomic development are best articulated by human capital theory,
whereby any improvement in the health, skills or motivation of the
workforce are seen to improve the productivity of workers. Insofar as
education brings about improvements in the quality of the human
population, it is seen as a major contribution to the economic growth
of a country.
Contemporary economists who hold this view are able to cite con-
siderable evidence which they regard as supportive, for both agricultural
and industrial workers. For example in rural areas, two surveys of the
literature have identified 31 pre-1980 studies and 14 post-1980 studies
which supported the notion that increased education led to increased
agricultural productivity. In the earlier survey of 31 studies, Lockheed
and her colleagues (1980) concluded that farmers with an educational
attainment of four years increased their productivity by between 7 and
10 per cent. Building on the earlier survey, Moock and Addou (1997)
found an additional 14 studies which, even when taking into account
critiques of these studies, clearly supported the notion that, beyond a
threshold level, formal schooling improved agricultural productivity.
Although it is difficult to locate studies of the impact of education on
factory worker productivity in single countries, the evidence suggests
that higher levels of education do result in higher levels of worker
productivity. Haddad et al. (1990) suggest that one consequence of
higher levels of education is the opportunity to change to jobs with
higher skill demands and incomes.
Using the rate-of-return approach, Psacharopoulos (1985, 1994) has
provided perhaps the most comprehensive evidence that investment in
education does result in forms of economic growth, irrespective of the
type of society. If one assumes that economic development can be
defined in terms of rates of return, then his studies over the past several
decades merit attention. Beginning with the study of 32 countries in
1973, Psacharopoulos, by the mid 1990s, was able to produce rates-
of-return to investment in education for 78 countries. His findings
show that in developing countries the social rates of return to primary
schooling were between 17.9 and 24.3 per cent, depending on the
region. For secondary schooling and higher education, the comparable
rates were 12.8±18.2 per cent and 11.2±12.3 per cent respectively. These
figures were higher than the respective 14.4, 10.2 and 8.7 per cent
returns for the OECD countries. Nevertheless, the consistency in the
direction of the figures makes it clear that education brings about posi-
tive economic returns to society as a whole (Psacharopoulos, 1994).
However, these rates of return concern the benefits of education to the
economic development of society as a whole. What about the benefits to
the individual? In this respect Psacharopoulos' findings are even more
interesting, for the rates of return to individuals are on the whole greater
than to society, and the discrepancies are greater for the higher educa-
tion level than for the primary school level. Therefore, while it is appro-
priate to focus attention on the social rates of return to investment in
education, it is also important to keep in mind the individual rates of
return, as the latter may occur partly at the expense of the former.
Nevertheless, in terms of economic development, the research of Psa-
charopoulos makes it clear that education plays an important role. In
fact, this comparative approach makes it possible for Psacharopoulos to
conclude that in developing countries investment in primary education,
the education of females and the academic curriculum will make the
highest contribution to economic development.
Although this approach to the analysis of the link between education

and development has been criticized (Bennell 1996), the comparative
analysis of education has made significant policy inputs into the prior-
ities of educational expansion in both developed and less developed
countries. These are most apparent in the World Bank 1995 policy
review, Priorities and Strategies for Education (World Bank, 1995).
Alternate economic models of education

For over three decades some economists have suggested that the rela-
tionship between education and development is not as straightforward
as implied by the neo-classicists and the human capital theorists. In the
late 1960s Coombs (1968) argued that the expansion of government
funded educational facilities would not necessarily lead to economic
growth, but could result in an economic burden brought about by the
costs of sustaining larger but possibly inappropriate educational struc-
tures. More than a decade later Coombs (1985) concluded that the
relationship between education and economic growth was more com-
plex but not appreciably different from his original argument.
Other comparative educationists agreed with this view. Weiler (1978),
for example, questioned the notion that educational expansion would
automatically lead to economic growth. He argued that issues of equity,
the relationship between education and work, and educational reform
were among the three most important issues related to choice in educa-
tional policymaking. In effect, he agreed with Coombs that investment
in education will not necessarily lead to economic growth.
In a similar manner, Blaug (1985) argued that the effects of education
on economic growth are not linear and straightforward, and that other
social factors sometimes intervene to produce unintended results. He
suggested that economists should direct their attention to the `screening
hypothesis', the ìncomplete employment contract' and `labour market
segmentation' for expanations as to why educational expansion had not
always resulted in the level, or type, of economic growth desired. In this
respect, Blaug's more critical approach to the relationship of education
to economic growth was consistent with the sociological arguments put
forth earlier by Dore (1976), that the unrestrained drive for more educa-
tion in any country could result in a dysfunctional overproduction of
highly trained educated persons. This he saw as particularly relevant for
developing economies where the needs for human capital were not
always the same as in developed countries.
There are at least two alternatives to the human capital perspective in
conceptualizing the relationship between education and economic
development (Easton and Klees 1990; Klees 1989). The first is the insti-
tutionalist approach whereby focus is directed to the patterns of social
behaviour which shape supply and demand for education (rather than
the reverse), and the use to which it is put. In this context labour market
segmentation and internal labour markets have been seen as important
explanatory variables for the difficulty of investment in education to
bring about the desired development results (Easton and Klees 1990;
LLamas 1994; Tueros 1994). The second alternative is the radical eco-
nomic perspective, or neo-Marxist political economy, which focuses on
the ways that education leads to the reproduction of social inequalities,
and the detrimental effects that these processes have on economic
growth. Authors such as Bowles and Gintis (1976) and Carnoy and
Levin (1985) have suggested that investment in education can and
does have negative effects on economic growth. The failure of educators
and economists to take these factors into account lead to educational
policies which result in more problems than are solved. In other words,
the effects of educational expansion are not self-evident, and do not
necessarily lead to economic growth (Dronkers and van der Ploeg 1997).
Summary
Comparative educationists and some economists now agree that educa-

tional expansion will not necessarily lead to economic growth.
Although the belief in the contribution of education to the improve-
ment of human capital continues to survive, the structure of the labour
market and the social and cultural context within which this expansion
takes place, are also seen as important. In this context, the questions of
the type of education, for which target population and for what kind of
development must be taken into account. In this respect, the economic
dimension in the relationship between education and development is
highly complex and remains of considerable interest to comparative
educationists.
Education and social dimensions of development

The social conditions of some parts of the world have not improved
much in the final three decades of the 20th century. The problems of
illiteracy, under-education, poverty, lack of housing, and indeed meet-
ing the basic human needs, have remained high on the agendas of
governments and international organizations, especially in the devel-
oping countries. However, in spite of the fact that primary school enrol-
ment in the developing countries more than doubled between 1960 and
1990, about 130 million children remain without primary schooling.

Furthermore, although illiteracy rates have declined since 1970 from 55
to 35 per cent, the increase in population has meant that the actual
number of illiterates in these countries has increased from 890 to 948
million (Ahmed, 1997).
Research in comparative education has made a considerable contribu-
tion to better understanding the role that education plays in improving
these social conditions in the process of change and development.
Furthermore, when these social needs are not met, the effects of
economic development on a country may be attenuated, or blocked
altogether. Thus it is essential to take into account the ways that educa-
tion may or may not influence social factors to obtain a broader per-
spective on the overall relationship between education and
development.
Education and becoming modern

Comparative educational researchers have regarded education as a prin-
cipal agent for improving the quality of life, and there is hardly an
aspect of social life that has not been explored by them. (See, for exam-
ple, Parker and Epstein, 1998.) The underlying assumption is that edu-
cation opens up minds to wider intellectual and material horizons, and
produces basic attitudes and values which makes change and a modern
society possible. The most important theoretical perspective, which has
driven this approach, has been modernization theory. Much of the
research on education as a modernizing agent has been based on the
definitions and measures of Inkeles, who first attempted to operational-
ize the notion of the `modern man' (Inkeles and Smith 1974).
Comparative researchers have generally accepted the description of
Inkeles and Smith of a modern person. For the latter, a modern person
exhibits the following characteristics: (1) an openness to new experi-
ence; (2) a readiness to social change; (3) an awareness of diversity in
attitudes and opinions, but the disposition to hold one's own views;
(4) being fact-oriented in forming opinions; (5) a focus on the present
and future rather than the past; (6) a sense of personal efficacy; (7)
oriented to long-term planning; (8) a trust in social institutions and in
individuals; (9) a high value on technical skill; (10) a high value on
education; (11) a respect for the dignity of others; and (12) understand-
ing the logic underlying production and industry.
Numerous studies during the 1960s and 1970s supported the modern-
ization hypothesis. For example, Lerner (1964) found that Middle Eastern
adults who had attained at least a secondary school education had
higher levels of psychic empathy, that is, the ability to adjust efficiently
to continually changing environments. Similar findings were found in
Mexico (Kahl 1968) and Brazil (Kahl 1968; Holsinger 1974). Using poli-
tical interest and awareness as an indicator of modernization, Almond
and Verba (1965) found that higher levels of education resulted in
higher levels of political interest among respondents in the United
States, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Mexico. Inkeles and Smith
(1974) found strong correlations between educational attainment and
individual modernity in their study of adults in Argentina, Chile, East
Pakistan (Bangladesh), India, Israel and Nigeria. Subsequent studies by
Verba et al., (1978) and Inkeles (1983) have reinforced these earlier
findings. Finally, Delacroix and Ragin (1978) argued that the school is
a domestically based modernizing institution while the mass media may
or may not be. In their study of 49 less developed countries, they
concluded that the school had the potential to modernize without
Westernizing, and that countries with strong state-sponsored pro-
grammes (mobilizing regimes) used education as a modernizing agent
more effectively than less controlled programmes.
A critique of the modernization hypothesis

The most fundamental critique of the modernization hypothesis is
whether the process of becoming modern is incompatible with tradi-
tional attitudes, lifestyles and behaviour. Furthermore, there were
researchers who did not believe that schools were inherently moderniz-
ing. From a theoretical perspective, the traditional±modern dichotomy
was challenged from the beginning by Gusfield (1967), and more
recently by Preston (1996) and by Smolicz (1998). Empirically, Armer
and Youtz (1971) were among the first to suggest that under certain
circumstances, schools and the curriculum could have a traditionalizing
rather than modernizing effect. Studies of Koranic schools have sup-
ported this notion. For example Wagner and Lofti (1980) found that
Koranic schools do inhibit the acquisition of modern values. Schools
seem most successful as traditionalizing mechanisms in countries which
have most strongly resisted foreign domination, such as in Morocco,
Nigeria and Indonesia (Wagner 1985).
Additional criticisms have also been made. For example, it has been
argued that the `modernizing' impact of education is simply a reflection
of the fact that Western-type schools, which teach a conventional curric-
ulum, transmit knowledge upon which measures of modernity are
based. Thus, by definition, Western-type schools are modernizing
schools. Similarly, it could also be the case that the relationship between
education and modernization is the result of the self-selection of

parents and students, particularly in less developed countries. Predisposi-
tions to modern values become the motivating factors for school atten-
dance, with the result that schooling and the acquisition of modern
values are the result of a common determinant (FaÈgerlind and Saha,
1989).
Although it is argued that a country characterized by modern values
will benefit in terms of the quality of life of those within it, the trans-
mission of modern values through education can also create unintended
consequences. This has been most obvious in the case of the brain drain
of educated and `modernized' individuals from the less developed to the
more developed countries of the world. This phenomenon has been
recognized for both those who have been educated internally, as well
as students who have been educated abroad but who do not return to
their home countries (Broaded, 1993).
In conclusion, then, the role of education in bringing about the social
development of a society is not straightforward as the original hypo-
thesis suggested. Comparative and international educationists have
recognized this fact and their research on the factors which determine
the direction of education's impact is contributing to the sociological
understanding of the relationship between education and society.
Education, citizenship and democracy

Comparative education researchers have always recognized the relation-
ship between education and the political life of a country. In the past,
their concern has covered a wide range of processes, including political
integration, political socialization and political leadership. In recent
years this concern has focused on the issue of citizenship, particularly
since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist
countries. However, the attention given to citizenship has become part
of a global concern, being found at the forefront of research in both
developed and developing societies. Part of this concern can be traced to
issues of democracy itself and the importance of active citizenship for a
democracy to function smoothly.
Education, political socialization and citizenship

In order for members of society to participate in the political life of a
country, they must be socialized into its political culture. Schools have
always been seen as a major agent for this process. (See, for example,
Braungart and Braungart 1997; Ichilov 1994; Niemi and Junn 1996;
Renshon 1977.) However comparative education researchers have
documented the differences between countries in the extent to which

schools play a role in political education.
This is particularly the case with civic education in democratic coun-
tries. For example, Torney-Purta and Schwille (1986) argue that it is
impossible to impart consistent civic values in industrialized countries,
because many necessary values are in fact incompatible. Some indus-
trialized countries, such as the United States and Britain, emphasize
individual success, while others such as Japan, Greece and Germany
emphasize security. Indeed, Hahn (1998) documents how the notion
of citizenship and level of interest in politics varies between secondary
school students in five countries, with interest being higher in Den-
mark, Germany and Britain, and lowest in the Netherlands, with the
United States in the middle.
None of these findings suggest that being schooled in civic values and
the ideals of citizenship guarantee compliance with current political
regimes or the political status quo. In some countries, schools seem to
socialize students to favour change rather than to promote stability, in
spite of the official curriculum of the school or national ideology. In a
comparative study of Columbia and the United States, it was found that
American students held favorable political dispositions toward their
government, while the opposite was true for Columbian students
(Nathan and Remy 1977). In a similar manner, Harber (1984) found in
his study of the Hausa in Nigeria that the political values taught in
school may openly conflict with those of the political leadership. One
reason for this is that while political leaders may wish to encourage
democratic values through the educational system, the bureaucratic
structure of the system supports authoritarian rather than democratic
values (Harber 1997).
Education, democracy and nation-building

The notion of democracy has enjoyed considerable attention among
comparative education researchers. Even though there are variations
in the meaning of democracy, it is widely accepted that education is a
primary agent for the transmission of democratic values and, therefore,
for the establishment and maintenance of democratic political regimes.
Indeed, it has been argued that the same attitudes and values which
contribute to the existence of modern societies, are those which makes
strong democracies possible (Inkeles 1999).
It has been argued that the relationship between economic develop-
ment and political democracy is better understood than that between
education and political democracy. In a large comparative study of 107
to 148 countries (depending on the aspect of the study) Benavot found

that direct changes in political democracy over time could be explained
significantly by the expansion of education, and in particular higher
education (1996). Thus not only does education ` . . . enhance the polit-
ical competencies and skills of individuals, makes them more conscious
and effective political actors, and increases their political participation',
but higher education creates political elites who can exercise leadership
legitimately (Benavot 1996: 402).
The irony of the relationship between education and democratic
political development is that the increased political sophistication of
citizens may make it more difficult for political leaders to govern. Ingle-
hart (1996) found in his analysis of 21 countries that education and
economic security are bringing about an intergenerational shift in
respect for authority. This decline in respect for authority is in turn
making the task of governing more difficult for political leaders.
The creation of politically autonomous individuals who are more
likely to become involved in political action will put demands on
leaders for responsive democratic institutions. However, as Inglehart
notes, it could also result in greater political apathy and civic
indifference.
It is in this context that comparative and international education
researchers have become more focused on issues related to education
and democracy. McGinn (1996), for example, has argued that
comparative and international educational researchers do make an
impact on increasing public participation in social and economic life.
In this respect, the comparative research on forms of civic and citizen-
ship education is demonstrating yet another important dimension of
the relationship between education and development. In this case, it is
the political dimension which is affected.
Conclusion
Comparative and international education are both expanding fields. As

the world becomes more complex, and at the same time comes under
the influence of global social and economic tendencies, the comparative
study of education's role in these processes becomes increasingly import-
ant for both understanding and policymaking. Furthermore, the epi-
stemology and methodology of comparative studies is very much a part
of the social sciences. In this respect, the comparative study of educa-
tion, as described in this article, is very much sociological, and a grow-
ing part of the sociology of education.
There are many issues that have not been discussed in this article, not
because they lack importance, but rather because the focus has been on
a dimension of research that is likely to remain important well into the
next century. Clearly the study of gender and sex differences, adult
education, agricultural and vocational education will continue to
merit attention in this regard (Saha 1995). These topics, however, will
be a part of the larger issue of how education is related to the economic,
social and political changes, and development that will characterize the
21st century.
Finally, the comparative study of education has shown how varied are
the roles and structures which education takes in different cultural
settings. Comparative education has provided sufficient evidence to
dispel any assumptions about there being a single model of education
appropriate for all countries. Education is a major agent for the eco-
nomic, social and political improvement of society, but only if it is
adapted and used in a manner appropriate to the cultural context of a
particular country.
9
New Class Relations in Education:
the Strategies of the `Fearful'
Middle Classes
Stephen Ball and Carol Vincent
This chapter is part of a broader effort within the sociology of education

to write social class back into the analytical problematic of the discip-
line. Social class has been the subject of considerable debate and devel-
opment in mainstream sociology in recent years. However, to some
extent research in the sociology of education has failed to keep abreast
of or take into account empirical, methodological and theoretical devel-
opments in class analysis in mainstream sociology. We intend to
demonstrate that pronouncements about the ènd of class' are prema-
ture. Marshall (1997) suggests that `we may have mistaken changes in
the shape of the class structure for changes in social fluidity or the degree
of openness' (p.5 emphasis in the original).
Class relations in education may differ in some ways from those
prevalent in the past but they have by no means disappeared, and as
Marshall (1997, p.56) notes, education is the area most often referred to
in order to refute claims that the influence of class on individual life
chances is in decline. More broadly, Crompton (1998) in the conclusion
to her book on current debates on class and stratification comments that
`the concept of ``class'' ± in all its many manifestations ± remains essen-
tial to the understanding of our contemporary social condition' (p.229)
or to quote (Reay, 1998) `despite a pervasive denial of class status, there
are emotive intimacies of class which continue to shape individual's
everyday understandings, attitudes and actions' (p.267). Material, dis-
cursive and psychological class differences remain a crucial explanatory
component of persistent social inequality, and all of these are factors in
the complex ways in which class is constituted. None of this, however, is
intended to deny or marginalize other dimensions of inequality and
180
New Class Relations in Education 181
their complex, `messy' connections with social class (Savage and Butler,
1995, p.346).
In this chapter we want to indicate how current social and economic
conditions underpin a reworked but also re-emphasized agenda of class
differentiation in education (Brown, 1997; Jordon, Redley and James,
1994; Lash and Urry, 1994; Pakulski and Waters, 1996 and Savage et al.,
1992). We agree with Savage and Butler (1995 p.347) that èxploring
continuity and change simultaneously' is necessary to reconcile the
arguments of those who emphasize long standing patterns of inequality
and those who point to their transformation as a result of fundamental
social and economic change. In particular in this chapter we will con-
sider the point noted by Reay (1998) that `current educational research
has revealed an increasing middle-class policing of class boundaries . . . '
(p.265). We will refer to a number of studies which indicate in particular
the interventions of middle-class parents into education practice to
defend and further their class interests. These appear to be `parents
who get what they want', as Birenbaum-Carmeli (1999) puts it. In addi-
tion, but very briefly, informed by the theoretical work on `the new
middle class', we will argue the need for a more careful and detailed
analysis of intra-class differences in education. To be clear then our focus
is on the middle class(es) rather than social class generally and more
particularly we address the strategies of class reproduction of these
middle class(es).
Our concern here is not with debates about the meritocracy or other-
wise of the education system in the UK. However, as should become
clear, we are taking seriously the view of many middle-class respondents
in our research studies that ability is not enough to ensure the success of
children (or of their children) in the education system (Gewirtz, Ball and
Bowe, 1995 and Vincent and Martin, 1999; see also Jordon et al., 1994
and Marshall and Swift, 1997). As Savage and Egerton (1997) found
individual ability is not the decisive factor in the social reproduction
of service class occupational positions: `the overall advantages of the
service class over other social classes . . . exist both with and without
controls for ability' (p.667); although there are gender differences
embedded in this relationship. Savage and Egerton (1997) also report
that the perpetuation of the class privileges of daughters were much
more heavily dependent on their ability scores than was the case for
sons ± `middle class men have more resources to draw upon' (p.667);
they mention material advantages, social networks and cultural capital
but the notion of resources remains vague. Commenting that ability
alone is inadequate in accounting for class reproduction, Savage and
Egerton refer to the role of òther mechanisms'. Here we explore some of

these òther mechanisms'.
The end of class?
There is certainly overwhelming evidence of global economic changes

which have both made more permeable and reordered class structures.
However, Pakulski and Waters (1996) go further and see the `new times'/
high/postmodernity (or whatever) as having changed the basis on
which inequality is constituted. Thus, they argue, àdvanced societies
are riven by unacceptable divisions of inequality, conflict and domina-
tion that are often marked by coercive or exploitative practices. How-
ever, they can no longer be sheeted home to class and any insistence in
sociology that class should be our primary focus will divert attention
away from these conditions' (p.viii). To some extent this is a sociological
truism but whether it can allow us to talk about the `death of class' or to
relegate class to the side lines of social analysis is a different matter.
Some theorists have suggested that political claims for cultural recogni-
tion have supplanted calls for economic redistribution but this is by no
means uncontested (see Fraser, 1997a; Fraser, 1997b; Phillips, 1997 and
Young, 1997, for discussion). It is certainly the case that attention has
moved away from the grand narratives of class to other inequalities, but
much theoretical and empirical attention has been paid to exploring the
interconnections, especially of gender and race, with class (for example,
the collections edited by Blair and Holland 1995 and Mirza 1997; Savage
and Butler 1995).
However, as we see it, these debates have led to an unfortunate neglect
of class analysis in educational research, a view shared by Bates and
Riseborough (1993) and a number of other researchers in the sociology
of education. Nonetheless, the UK class structure, as elsewhere, has
changed. Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of change is the rapid
expansion of `middle class groups'. By 1991 approximately 55 per cent
of the workforce consisted of white-collar workers and 30 per cent of
workers were employed in professional and managerial occupations;
double the proportion in the mid 1960s. Set against and in relation to
the growth of the middle classes is an increase in income inequalities
and in poverty (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1995). In relation to these
changes researchers and theorists have addressed the middle classes in
two different ways: either in terms of the advantages and interests of
these people as a whole, as against others ± the working class; or,
increasingly, by focusing upon the internal fragmentation of the middle
classes and patterns of differentiation, division and exclusion which

produce and reproduce middle-class fractions (Bourdieu, 1986; Lee,
1993 and Savage et al., 1992). As noted we want to give some attention
to both approaches.
Class in context
Class relations and class practices in education both respond to and

contribute to economic change and labour market structure. We want
to suggest that the contemporary educational perspectives and practices
of the middle classes are shaped and informed by a set of fears and
concerns about social and economic reproduction. As Brown (1997)
explains it:
The declining faith in the ability of employing organizations to offer

secure long-term employment, or to meet their expectations of career
advancement, will lead to an increasing emphasis on academic and
professional credentials as an insurance policy in the same way that
people insure themselves and their homes against adversity. . . the
acquisition of material property is correctly understood by the mid-
dle classes to be a `risky business' . . .
(pp.740±1)
This is a recurring theme in our recent and current research on parents

and parental choice (for example Ball, 1997b). Parents often spoke about
the increased competition and risk in education and the labour market
for their children compared with their own experiences.
. . . his Dad and I we sort of sat down and said the competition out
there, it is a hell of a lot stiffer than it was when we were his age. You
might be good but there are people out there who will be better than
you, obviously if you stay on at school you know what competition
you will be up against. (Mrs P. quoted from an ESRC funded project
Èducation markets in the post-16 sector of one urban locale' 1995±97
conducted by Stephen Ball, Sheila Macrae and Meg Maguire, award
no. L123251006)
Life is going to be harder for them than it was for us. In a way you've
got to fight to push them to get what's best for them. I suppose it's a
slightly selfish thing as well, it's nice to think your kids are doing OK,
and they're nice kids and they're doing alright. But I think life is
going to be harder for them than us, and you've got to make sure that
they've got the best opportunity there is basically. (Mrs R. quoted
from an ESRC funded project : ` ''Little polities'': schooling, govern-
ance and parental participation', 1997±99, conducted by Jane Martin,
Stewart Ranson and Carol Vincent, award no. R000 23 7123)
One particular, and very material, aspect of this new politics of uncer-
tainty is the dramatic change in the trajectory of economic growth and
patterns of employment which provided the basis for the massive post-
war expansion in the middle classes and the creation of the so-called
`new middle class'. For some, their ìmagined futures' and those of their
off-spring, are now under threat from the ùnmanaged congestion' and
ìntensified positional competition' (Hirsch, 1977) in the old and new
professions and in management positions (Jordon, Redley and James
1994, Jordan 1996). The nature of `career' in management and the
professions has itself changed. Increasingly senior managerial and pro-
fessional jobs are subject to systems of performance related pay and
fixed-term contracts (Butler and Savage 1995). We are now used to
thinking about `serial' or `portfolio' careers. In Sweden, Jonsson (1998)
reports tendencies of convergence between certain conditions of white
collar and blue collar jobs. Also, in the UK, there are instances of a
`surplus' of qualified professionals in fields like architecture and the
law ± in the early 1990s 40 per cent of qualified architects in the UK
were unemployed. This congestion is exacerbated in the UK by changes
in participation rates in Higher Education. The expansion of higher
education has raised the participation rate from 12 per cent in the
1970s to approximately 34 per cent (1996±97, Social Trends 1999);
with a concomitant increase in graduate unemployment ± 6.9 per cent
in 1987 rising to 14.5 per cent in 1992 (quoted in Brown, 1997). Thus, a
key aspect of the uncertainty among the middle classes is the idea that
higher education, once their exclusive privilege, is now being assailed by
ìntruders from below' (Ehrenreich, 1989). This leads to an increased
emphasis by middle-class choosers on `principles of division' (Bourdieu
1986 p.479) between HE providers (Reay et al., 1999). Middle-class par-
ental uncertainties about the earlier stages of education are further
reinforced by doubts about the effectiveness of state schooling, fuelled
by media and Ofsted reports of `failing schools', declining standards and
inadequate teachers. One effect of this has been a loss of support among
the new middle classes for efforts to democratize education and social
policy. Education is being `transformed back into an `òligarchic'' good'
(Jordon, Readley and James, 1994, p.212) or what Thurow and Lucas
(1972) call a `defensive necessity'. There are, we suggest, a number of

strategies on the part of middle-class groups which aimed at preserving
their family's positional advantages.
Class strategies
What we want to do here is to establish or co-ordinate a focus of analysis

which offers an account of social class related patterns in educational
outcomes which is located neither in home differences (childrearing
practices, achievement orientation, linguistic socialization and so on)
nor in the classroom (teacher or curricular biases, linguistic patterns,
authority patterns and so on) nor in differences in measured ability but
rather is to be found in the interactions between home and school, in
the class strategies of parents.
With some degree of simplification we suggest that these class stra-
tegies can be broken down into two distinct but interrelated categories
of activity: choice and voice.
Choice
One of us (SB) has argued extensively elsewhere (Ball, 1993, Ball, 1997a)
that middle-class anxieties about social reproduction and the mainten-
ance of social advantage are key features of the politics of social mar-
kets. That is to say, middle-class parents, on the whole, are familiar with
and comfortable with the mode of consumption now operating in the
state education system (and other social markets), and further, they are
particularly advantaged by it. The market form valorizes certain types of
cultural and social capital which are unevenly distributed across the
population. The use of these capitals in choice-making and choice-
getting enables certain social groups to maintain or change their posi-
tion in the social structure. School choice is a critical point of cultural
investment in the symbolic economy. Schooling, of certain sorts, is an
effective means of storing value for future realization. As a form of
signification, certain sorts of schooling generate surplus meaning;
` . . . the circulation of value can only occur when values take on objecti-
fied form through some specific instance of representation' (Lee, 1993,
p.162). Thus, for many of the families discussed here choice of school is
a reinvestment or strategy of reconversion to conserve or enhance their
class ranking.
One element of this is the maintenance of exclusivity. As Kenway
(1990) puts it: Ìn class relations, consumption is part of the process of
social distancing and closure, helping to define `ùs'' and ``them''.'
Parents seek to place their children with others, or mainly with others,
who are like them. In doing so they seek to achieve a class fit between
the habitus of home and institution and avoid social mixing. In Bour-
dieu's terms: `The agents only have to follow the leanings of their
habitus in order to take over, unwittingly, the intention immanent in
the corresponding practices, to find an activity which is entirely ``them''
and with it, kindred spirits' (p.223).
Mrs Jeynith: Hutton, I don't know. . . my husband and I felt very keen
that she should go into a school where there is a high percentage of
children coming in from homes where parents are educated. Now
Northwark . . . a lot of parents are educated, and the children do have
a sense of discipline and good behaviour, and so . . . I suppose it's not
very good to speak of this in terms of being class conscious, but really
we felt that she should mix with children who come from good
homes . . . and . . . I don't know, we couldn't really work it out, which
school might have a higher concentration of children . . . she should
move around with children from disciplined homes.
(quoted in Ball, 1997b)
A middle-class mother in the `Little Polities' project whose daughter

attends a relatively successful multi-racial girls comprehensive in London
discussed the difficulties of choosing a school for her son. She spoke
about her fears of the local comprehensive which has a poor local
reputation.
I think there's a whole band of people like myself who wouldn't

naturally send their children privately. . . and would if there was an
establishment that was a little bit better than what we've got, I think
they would readily support it . . . I think Durham school has got a
wonderfully committed staff, but it, and you know, it probably
doesn't sound very politically correct to say this, but at the end of
the day what you're, I mean my child is proficient in English . . . and
I'm particularly passionate about literature and the English language
and I want that fully developed. I'm not saying that that can't
happen, but then I think a school like Durham that embraces so
many cultures has so much to give, but I also want my child's English
extended, and whilst you know, he is mixing with children who
haven't that level, I mean OK in other areas yes, wonderful, but you
know, I want that side of things developed . . . I think that's an issue
that has to be addressed because it's one that sounds, very you know,
and we had, the primary [school] PTA organized for the head of
Durham to come along, and I said the same point there, risking my
neck . . . but I knew it was in a lot of parents' minds and I felt awful
saying it, and I said, you know, this isn't and I'm not the pushy white
middle class parent, well, I suppose am, but you know, that's an issue
that has to be looked at.
(Trisha, white mother, `Little Polities' project)
One of the results of the pursuit of exclusivity is a trend towards polari-

sation within the education system and other social markets as the
choices of the socially advantaged allow `new narrower mutualities
and clubs' to form, excluding other social groups (Jordan, 1996,
p.241).
Recent research has identified a tendency for schools in competitive
local markets to be acutely aware of the need to secure both a high level
of subscription from new pupils and a high-ranking position in the
league tables, and thus to tailor their provision to the perceived
concerns and desires of middle-class parents. Thus, especially within
a market setting, it is not always necessary for the middle classes to
act to get their way. Reay (1998b) describes events in an English
comprehensive school, Fletcher in which a science department
commited to mixed ability teaching, with a successful examination
record, is required by the headteacher to reintroduce setting (tracking)
as part of a concerted effort by the school to recruit more middle class
parents. Mixed ability, the Head argues, is regarded by middle-class
parents as not serving their children's best interests. Internal debates at
Fletcher were circumscribed by the `strong authority of the principal'
and a separation of issues of equity from those of excellence. Tracking or
setting, as against mixed ability teaching, is a particularly pointed issue
which sets educational and social issues against those of exclusivity and
social advantage.
Similarly, a study of grant-maintained schools conducted by Halpin,
Power and Fitz (1997) indicated a reinvented and invigorated tradition-
alism in these schools; one that was based on a perception that this
would appeal to middle-class parents. As well as moves intended to
signal academic rigour (for example plentiful homework, emphasis on
exam performance), greater differentiation of the children (through for
example, setting and streaming), there are also signs of growing deploy-
ment of signifiers of traditionalism (strict uniform policies in particular)
(see also Gewirtz et al., 1995 and Woods, Bagley and Glatter, 1998 for
similar developments in the maintained sector).
As Bourdieu and Boltanski, 1981 pp.220±1) put it: `The education

market has become one of the most important loci of class struggle.
Education itself is changed by all this.' It becomes in Labarea (1997)
words àn arena for zero-sum competition filled with self-interested
actors seeking opportunities' (p.32). All of these might be seen as a
part of what (Beck, 1992) describes as the reflexivity and individualiza-
tion typical of `risk societies'.
Voice
The other set of strategies to which we wish to draw attention can be
grouped under the heading of `voice'. By this we mean the way in which
parents formulate and express their views and opinions to a school, and
the ways in which they interact with the institution once their choice of
school has been made. Do middle-class parents use their voice to protect
and defend the interests of their children? Raftery and Hout (1993),
writing about educational inequalities and education reform, suggest
that this is the case. They argue that:
To try to advance merit and retract class advantages as a basis of

selection in a system that remains highly selective is likely to rankle
too many entrenched interests. Those who lose privileges could be
expected to fight to retain them.
(p.60)
If this is so, what are the issues on which middle-class parents exercise
their voice, and what strategies do they use to do so?
In the US, a number of studies have revealed the opposition of afflu-
ent white parents to detracking programmes. Stuart Wells describes the
findings from her study as follows:
Within each of our ten schools, when educators penetrated the ideo-
logy that legitimates the track structure (and the advantages that
high-track students have within it), elite parents felt that their privil-
eges were threatened. We found that local elites employed four prac-
tices to undermine and co-opted meaningful detracking efforts in
such a way that they and their children would continue to benefit
disproportionately from educational policies. These four overlapping
and intertwined practices were threatening flight, co-opting the insti-
tutional elites, soliciting buy-in from the `not-quite-elite', and accept-
ing detracking bribes.
(Stuart Wells and Serna, 1997, p.728)
In an earlier paper based on the same study Stuart Wells and Oakes
(1996) argue that, what they call èfficacious parents of high-achieving
or identified gifted students will demand greater differentiation between
what their children learn and what is offered to other students' (p.138).
All of this is mirrored in Lipman's (1998) study of schools and school
restructuring in Riverton, USA. In particular, in her case study of Gates
High School, Lipman identifies the work done by Riverton's upper mid-
dle-class interests to `limit and define restructuring through their opposi-
tion to the heterogeneously grouped Study and Research Methods
class and their ability to reinstate their children's separation from low-
achieving African American students' (p.170). Gates was à microcosm
of the interplay of competing interests' (p.142) in the school district. As
Lipman goes on to say: `The web of race and class in these power
relations was difficult to untangle' (p.170) but Èlite white parents did
not seem to object to high-achieving, mainly middle-class African
Americans in honors classes' (p.171). Essentially at Gates certain issues
and areas of debate about restructuring were òff the agenda' ± `silences
and omissions' existed. As at Fletcher School mentioned earlier, èqual-
ity and educational excellence were framed as competing and separate
interests' (p.170) within the school, the school district and the commu-
nity.
A similar widespread middle-class resistance to privilege threatening
changes ± like detracking or racial integration programmes ± is reported
by Kohn (1998) who describes parents who act in this way as ìn effect
sacrificing other children to their own' (p.571). That is, the `personal
standpoint', self-interest, aggregative principles predominate. The self-
interested parental chooser is in Barber's (1994) terms: òblivious to that
essential human interdependency that underlies all political life' (p.25).
Another example of ìntervention' comes from Australia, and another
Riverton, a Queensland primary school. Hatton (1985) describes the
activities of the Parents and Citizens Committee (P&C) ± à very power-
ful body' (p.260) made up of upper middle-class parents. Successive
principals at Riverton were unable to `handle' the P&C who were active
and effective in blocking a number of progressive innovations
attempted in the school. For example: `The P&C began to lobby politi-
cians and the Education Department against the provision of open plan
classrooms in Riverton. The basis of the P&C protest was disapproval of
`òpen'' educational practices' (p.262). Members of the P&C were also
vocal in public meetings. The upshot was the installation of partitions
and the continuation of one teacher±one class teaching at Riverton. (For
a similar ethnographic account of middle class parental resistance to
`progressive' educational practices, see Miles and Gold 1981.) More

generally Hatton reports that `children of high status parents, through
the intervention of their parents, achieve the best conditions, for exam-
ple stable, competent staff.' Writing with striking prescience Hatton
(1985) concludes that:
As articulations approximate the market relationship the scope of

situated autonomy [for teachers] reduces, and when tensions develop
between teachers' pedagogic judgements and decisions and parents'
beliefs about what is legitimate and appropriate, interventions are
likely to follow.
(p.270)
Bowe, Ball and Gold, 1992 (pp.50±3) cite another example, at Flight-
path School, where parents directly challenged mixed ability grouping,
and thus the teachers' right to decide on best practice. Again, as indic-
ated in earlier examples, the senior management saw their handling of
the dispute as àccelerated by the whole gathering realization that we
were in the marketplace' (senior deputy, quoted p.52). However, such
instances of collective parental resistance to school policy are relatively
unusual. We would also like to draw attention to the more everyday
practices of monitoring and intervention which middle-class parents
deploy. These may be conducted in homes without direct reference to
the school (helping with homework, arranging after-school activities
and so on), indeed they may `by-pass' the school altogether (arranging
private tution for example). However, there are also occasions when
parental `vigilance' (Allatt, 1993) leads parents to initiate `conversation'
with the school. (`Bypass' and `conversation' are terms used by Martin,
Ranson and Vincent in the `Little Polities' project to describe parental
strategies of communication with the school. Other possibilities include
`storming', èxit' and `silence'.)
We draw here on data collected for the `Little Polities' project (for
more details, see Martin and Vincent, 1999), exploring the expression
and formulation of parental voice in schools, to develop this point. As
part of the on-going analysis a group of 76 parents interviewed across
two case study schools, Willow and Carson, were divided into three
groups: high, intermediate and low interveners. The high interveners
group of about 27 families were overwhelmingly those with at least one
parent in professional or managerial occupations (21 out of 27). This
group can be described as `risk managers'. They are not willing to leave
education, seen as a key determinant of their child's future, to the
school. They are `driven' by an awareness of the congested labour mar-

ket, the need for their child to achieve to a high level if they are going to
reproduce their class advantages, a strong feeling of parental respons-
ibility for their children's welfare and achievement, and a sense of inter-
connection between the home and school on the aims and purposes of
education (if that sense is not present, these parents will look to exit the
school and search for another more in tune with their beliefs). Not all
these characteristics are exclusive to this group, the first two ± awareness
of the congested labour market and feelings of parental responsibility for
the children's achievement and welfare ± are shared by many other
respondents. However, this group have both the ìnclination and the
capacity' (Gewirtz et al., 1993) to act on their values and perceptions by
interacting with the school. Having an active relationship with the
school is part of their habitus, how `people like us' behave. This manifests
itself in a variety of, largely individual, strategies ± attending parent
forums and annual parents meetings in some cases, and bringing up
issues (such as, in one school, the standard of maths teaching) which
concerned them, writing to or ringing and visiting teachers on specific
points arising from their tracking of the child's progress and/or welfare
(such as requesting that their child be moved into a higher set). A group of
parents who were regular attendees at a parents forum at one school,
Willow, were there largely for the benefits they hoped their attendance
might bring for their own individual children (stated reasons were get-
ting information about school processes and events, building relation-
ships with teachers and being seen to be interested).
An example is provided by Claire, one of the regulars at Willow's
parents' forum. Her daughter failed the entrance exam for a nearby
selective school, so attended Willow, a comprehensive, instead. Claire
explains her attendance at meetings as being informed by her percep-
tion of `the shortcomings of any ordinary comprehensive in London'
and the concomitant need to monitor provision,
I don't really agree with [selective schooling] but yeah I did do that
[sit her child for entrance exam]. . . . I was quite naõÈve really because I
didn't really know that you should tutor them . . . so she didn't get
in. . . . I mean, it's just that you end up wanting the very best for your
children. . . . The thing is one of the reasons why I go to the [Willow
parents' forum] is so that I know what's happening in the school and
I feel reassured you know, I know about all the problems, like the fact
that there aren't enough maths and science teachers nation-wide and
in London, it's acute. It's a problem at Willow . . . I mean you've got to
be aware of all these things and try and, if necessary, to get a tutor for
your child or whatever. But if your child gets into one of those
[selective] schools you don't have to bother. I'd be surprised if I
went to many PTA meetings if my child was in a school like
that . . . I would go to some things obviously, I'd support the school
[but] you wouldn't have to bother. I mean they don't have any
trouble recruiting anyone . . . . So from that point of view you could
just think òh, phew. Sit back and relax' You wouldn't have to worry.
(Claire, white mother)
Regular attendees at the parents' forum also employed less particularist

language, focusing on `giving something back' to the school, or offering
support to the school, which ran alongside the more individualistic
reasons for attendance, but was muted in comparison.
In one or two cases, `risk manager' parents at the two schools, Willow
and Carson, were from intermediate class groupings. These people were
concerned more with what Diane Reay refers to as the transformation of
habitus rather than its reproduction (1998 p.164). Their efforts and
anxieties were directed towards ensuring that their children had more
opportunities than they did, particularly the opportunity to go on into
higher education, and to acquire a well-paid and secure job.
It is easy to characterize all middle class parents as effective in both
articulating their agendas and in imposing them. The willingness to
respond to the institution is one obvious dimension mediating effect-
iveness; although as noted already the `pressures' of competition may
encourage responsiveness. Even so in the `Little Polities' project, the
researchers found no examples of parents sucessfully persuading the
schools to make major changes in policy or organization (although
attempts were made to effect change, taking up issues such as mixed
ability grouping, mathematics teaching styles, and uniform policies).
There are a number of possible explanations for this apparent collapse
into silence, spanning from parental deference to professional expertise
and feelings of loyalty to what were generally perceived as `good'
schools, to the class fractions to which the parents belonged (for an
example of a more vocal and determined parental group see Reay 1998
as well as the examples given above).
In various ways then what we are presenting here is what Jordon et al.,
(1994) refer to as `putting the family first' in their study of middle-class
decision making: `The interviewees used the repertoires of individualism
to construct identities that bore the hallmarks of a distinctive culture ±
one that prioritized the family as a private, self-responsible setting for
the pursuit of self-making in clearly gendered roles' (pp.5±6). This is in

effect a culture of self interest or in Nagel's (1991) terms the morality of
the `personal standpoint'. There are changes both in the `standpoint'
perspectives of the middle class, in response to increases in uncertainty
and reproduction risks, and the discursive climate (individualism/com-
petition), and the policy context (markets, choice, consumerism/
empowering the parent) which makes certain strategies possible and
indeed legitimate. We are in no way suggesting that these middle-class
strategies are new. What we are suggesting is that the changing labour
market context and policy context have encouraged and made possible,
respectively, an increase in the use of such strategies.
Conclusions
We have four points in conclusion. First, we must acknowledge the

importance of attending to differences within the middle classes both
in terms of ideologies and practices in relation to education. The import-
ance is a very material one. As Blackburn (1998) demonstrates `the prob-
ability of entering university varies with father's occupation, with a huge
difference between the top and bottom of the top class, and comparat-
ively little difference between the bottom of this class and the bottom of
the lowest class [at least prior to the recent expansion]' (p.737±8).
There have been many theoretical and empirical attempts to explore
differentiation within the middle class(es). Dunleavy (1980) and Perkin
(1989) argue that the most significant cleavage within the middle class
as a whole is not between the asset basis of occupational groups (that is
professionals, managers and entrepreneurs) but rather between public
and private sectors of employment. Featherstone (1991) and Lee (1993)
explore a further development of, and division within, the middle class;
that is the class fraction that Featherstone refers to as `the intellectuals
and specialists in symbolic [as oppose to material] production'
(pp.34±5). Another dimension has been suggested by Massey (1995),
that of spatial mobility ± the ease and flexibility of travel. Massey focuses
mainly on inter-class differences but also poses the question of potential
intra-class variations. A detailed understanding of the connections
between the social location of different class fractions and their relation-
ships with the education system, as students and then later perhaps as
parents, is still required.
Our second point is that we are not seeking to pathologize individual
middle-class parents. The discursive construction of a `good' or `respons-
ible' parent is one which stresses individual parental responsibility (see
for example the UK government's introduction of home±school

agreements setting out àpproved' parental behaviour and the similar,
though much wider attempt, to do the same thing in the New Zealand
Code of Social and Family Responsibility, (Department of Social Welfare,
1998). `Wanting the best' for one's children is constructed as a natural
parental impulse with the caveat `potentially at the expense of someone
else's child' being rendered invisible. `Working to preserve status' starts
early (Papenek, 1979, cited in Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995, p.131).
As Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (1995, p.131±2) argue, `Where people feel
compelled to protect their place in society by their own exertions, this
drive is bound to reach the nursery. Having a child is not enough, it has
to be brought up, and parents find themselves contending with fears of
sliding down the social scale as well as aspirations to climb up it.'
The degree of individualism and competition built into efforts to `put
the family first' lies hidden within a discourse privileging the necessary
virtues of family responsibility, self-reliance and containment. This may
lead to situations where individuals find themselves in a dilemma when
their espoused principles conflict with their idea of what is `best' for their
child (as in the case of some of the mothers quoted above). There is
certainly no simple relationship between principles and practice when
it comes to familial interests as Ball (1997b) found when looking at the
choice between state and private schooling. The relationships between
principles and practice were fragile. Some principles may also be weakly
held. Brantlinger, Majd-Jabbari and Guskin (1996) found in their inter-
view study of middle-class mothers that those mothers who pronounced
themselves committed to equity and tolerance also proceeded (under
questioning) to become far more passionate in dismissing these very
ideals when it came to the advantages they thought their own children
should receive. It is the aggregate of individual decisions, strategies and
actions which is of concern in policy terms. The effects, not only on the
larger collectivity, but also for individuals (congestion means that the
outcomes of parental investments in education are not guaranteed,
Jordan 1996) is unplanned, inefficient and most of all inequitable.
Third, it is disproportionately middle-class mothers rather fathers
who take the lead in maintaining `vigilance' in respect to their chil-
dren's welfare and achievement at school. Both parents may attend
formal events such as parents' evenings, but it is overwhelmingly
mothers who are involved in parents' forums and associations, who
monitor homework, talk to their children about the details of their
day, make contact with the teachers and arrange extra-curricular
activities (Reay 1998, Vincent, 1996). The burden of discharging the
responsibilities of a `good' parent in respect to education, therefore falls

on the mother.
Finally, we suggest here that as state education takes on more of the
commodified characteristics of business and business practices and the
risks of reproduction become more immediate then parents, and parti-
cular parents with certain skills and capitals will increasingly deploy,
and feel able to make use of, their `market position and rights and
powers over productive resources' (Crompton, 1998 p.226). Brown
(1997) refers to this as a change in the `rules of engagement' in educa-
tion from `that based on ``merit'' to ``the market'' ' (p.745). We are
suggesting that the changing economic conditions of education make
the middle classes more alert to their competitive interests in this field
and that the changing political (and economic conditions) of, and in,
education make them more able to pursue their competitive interests.
Despite changes to, and the increasing fluidity and complexity of social
relations in high modernity and the decline of traditional class politics,
social class position still goes a long way towards determining life
chances, although as Crompton argues ìncreasingly societal fragmenta-
tion may render these facts more opaque' (Crompton, 1998, p.227).
10
Missing: A Sociology of Educating
the Middle Class
Sally Power
Writing over 20 years ago, Patrick Hutber identified the 1970s as à time
of crisis for the middle classes, who are subjected to unprecedented
pressures and . . . unprecedented denigration' (1976: ix). His book The
Decline and Fall of the Middle Class and How It Can Fight Back argues that
the middle-class has not only sacrificed the economic basis for its con-
tinued prosperity, it has also lost the battle of ideas. Crippled by a self-
inflicted drive for egalitarianism and a related `middle class sense of
guilt', Hutber claims that `never has a section of society more enthusias-
tically co-operated in its own euthanasia'.
More recently, however, Diane Reay (1998a) claimed that the middle
class is not only in the ascendancy, but is squeezing out the interests of
other social groups. She argues that `the triumph of individualism'
evident in recent policies is a `consequence of the universalism of a
media controlled by middle-class' (p.263) and `represents the almost
universal acceptance of middle-class perspectives in society'. Indeed,
she argues that `working-class groupings in society under siege from
aggressive legal actions to augment the advantages of the middle classes
are both in retreat and in denial'.
In this chapter, I want to argue that the conflicts over the status of the
middle class arise in part from the absence of a sociology of the middle
class in general and of a sociology of educating the middle class in
particular. As Butler and Savage point out (1995:vii), `traditionally, the
social scientific gaze has been directed either downwards, to the working
classes, the poor and the dispossessed, or upwards, to the wealthy and
powerful'. This is particularly true in relation to education and has, I
shall argue, created an empirical gap which has grown ever more glaring
as the number of people deemed to be `middle class' grows and as the
conventional indicators of success and failure shift upwards and become
196
A Sociology of Educating the Middle Class 197
harder to define. I also want to argue that this gap has in turn contrib-
uted to some analytical difficulties and distortions.
While we are some way short of Blair's vision of a one class Britain in
which the òld establishment' is replaced by à new, larger, more merito-
cratic middle class . . . that will include millions of people who tradition-
ally see themselves as working class' (Jones 1999), there is little doubt
that the middle class has expanded. When Hutber was writing, only
14 per cent of the adult population were classed as professional/
managerial groups (ABs) and 36 per cent of the population were in
non-manual occupations (Punt, 1975). More recent figures show that
half the population is now middle class with about 30 per cent in
managerial or professional jobs (Mills 1995).
For sociologists of education, this expansion is likely to be especially
significant for our understanding of the relationship between schooling
and social reproduction. Unlike the very few `wealthy and powerful',
whose assets are such that privilege can be passed down irrespective of
external accreditation, members of the middle class largely depend
upon the credentials bestowed by the education system in order to
acquire or hold on to their position. Indeed, Giddens (1973) argues
that the middle class is defined by education inasmuch as its market
power is based principally upon educational qualifications. And just as
the hard line distinguishing `white collar' and `blue collar' workers is
blurring, or at least is becoming less relevant, as the principal means of
classifying social differences, so the expansion of educational qualifica-
tions has rendered what counts as educational success and educational
failure more opaque.
There was a time when obtaining any qualifications and staying on
beyond the legal school leaving age indicated educational success. But
the expansion of credentials, together with the limited number of
employment opportunities for unskilled school-leavers, has raised the
age of the critical branching points with the majority of school leavers
obtaining some form of qualification. Analysis of the 9000 young people
still remaining in the 1970 British Cohort Study shows that 64 per cent
obtained GCSEs and 21 per cent went on to get degrees (Bynner et al.,
1997).
A sociology of educating the middle class is important not only
because of demographic changes such as these, it is also important
analytically. The absence of a visible presence for the middle class
reflects the extent to which it has been `normalized' within the field.
In much the same way as `whiteness' has only recently been granted the
same attention as `blackness' and gender studies focus on masculinity
as well as `women's issues', I want to argue that issues of class cannot be

properly illuminated without looking at the middle class as well as the
working class. Sociological exploration of the middle class as a social
category will not only extend our understanding of the reproduction of
an increasingly large section of the population, but also that it will
enrich our understanding of the processes of social and cultural repro-
duction overall.
Representations of the middle class
In claiming that sociologists have largely overlooked the education of

the middle class, I am not suggesting that the middle class is absent from
sociological accounts. It has, however, rarely been the focus of the
investigation ± but rather the background against which the perspec-
tives and experiences of the working class have been contrasted. The
middle class exists in many studies predominantly as the symbol of
success against which the structural disadvantages of others are com-
pared. Because of this, its representation is often inadequate and based
on sometimes spurious assertions. I want to examine four of these in
particular that relate to (a) middle class homogeneity; (b) the nature of
schools; (c) inevitable educational success; and (d) middle class attrib-
utes and orientations.
The assumed homogeneity of the middle class

Because middle-class students are often only points of contrast against
which the various experiences of working-class students are set, they are
typically seen as much of a muchness. Bernstein is one of the first, and
still few, people working in education to recognize the significance of
internal variation within the middle class. In 1975, he argued that the
effects of differentiated schooling òn the internal structure and culture
of this class is something worthy of a prolonged study'. However, there
have been very few empirical investigations ± with notable exceptions
including Delamont's (1984a and b) work at St Luke's and Aggleton's
(1987) study of FE students at Spatown College.
Studying the internal structure and culture of the middle class is now
long overdue. As the middle class has expanded it has become increas-
ingly internally differentiated to the extent that many now agree that it
is more appropriate to use the term middle classes. Although most
classificatory systems differentiate vertically between upper and lower
levels of occupational status, Savage et al. (1992) argue that there are also
lines of horizontal differentiation that are based upon the ownership of
distinctive types of asset. They identify three distinct middle classes; the
petits bourgeoisie or entrepreneurs holding property assets, managers
holding organizational assets and professionals holding cultural cap-
ital.1 The first of these, the petite bourgeoisie, has been relatively unim-
portant in terms of class formation in the UK, but the divide between
the managerial and professional class is, they argue, fundamental to any
understanding of the middle classes. Indeed, Hanlon (1998) argues that
we are currently seeing a struggle between the managerial and the
professional classes.
Others have claimed to identify other sources of division. Dunleavy
(1980) and Perkin (1989) argue that one main cleavage in the middle
class is based on the sector of employment. Those in the public sector
derive their economic and ideological support from the state while
those in the private sector derive their support from the market. As
both the state and the market compete for resources, the economic
and ideological positionings of each group remain distinctive and con-
flictual. A similar, but rather different, cleavage has been identified in
terms of the field of production. In 1987, Berger commented that
`[c]ontemporary Western societies are characterized by a protracted con-
flict between two classes, the old middle class (occupied in the produc-
tion and distribution of material goods and services) and a new middle
class (occupied in the production and distribution of symbolic know-
ledge)'. Indeed, it is this distinction upon which much of Bernstein's
(1975, 1990, 1996) analyses of class and pedagogy is premised.
The implications of these divisions for education may be profound. In
our recent project `Destined for Success?' which explored the biographies
of a largely middle-class group of students, my colleagues and I argued
that schools may feed into the middle class along a number of directions
(see Power et al. 2000, Power 2000). First, some schools, notably those
that are private and academically selective, feed a greater proportion of
their students into high status universities and out into high status
occupations. Schools also seemed to have contributed to horizontal
differentiation of our middle-class respondents in terms of whether
they took up employment in the public or private sector. If these
tentative conclusions were supported with further analyses and further
studies, they would suggest a relationship between school and
occupational identity that extends beyond vertical differentiation.
They might suggest varying allegiances to private and public forms of
educational provision that influence sectors of employment and
political preferences that may in turn contribute to more sophisticated
understandings of school choice and occupational destination.
Schools as middle-class institutions

Another common assertion which relates to the assumed homogeneity
of the middle class and the assumed success of middle-class students
(considered next) is the often made claim that schools are `middle-class
institutions'. Reay (1998c: 52) for instance, talks about working class
women being silenced through `not being able to speak the language
of middle-class institutions'. Inasmuch as teachers are, by definition,
middle class then it can be argued that they are middle-class institu-
tions. But then so are virtually all institutions. It is the case that the
middle class gets more out of schools than the working class ± but then
it does out of every organization ± whether they be hospitals or shops. It
is hard to see what it is specifically about schools, as schools, that makes
them middle class.
Calling schools `middle-class institutions' also glosses over the differ-
ences between them. Willis' (1977) Hammertown Boys and Corrigan's
(1979) Cullingham Secondary and Municipal Comprehensive do not
feel particularly middle class and are certainly very different from Dela-
mont's (1984a and b) St Luke's or even Lacey's (1970) Hightown Gram-
mar. Even within those schools that might be seen to cater specifically
for the middle class, there is huge variation. Bernstein comments on the:
spectrum of British public schools, which over the last hundred years
has created a range of social types out of the beatings of Harrow and
the subtle spontaneity of Summerhill. The British middle class can
not only ensure its privileged position in education, but through the
public school system it can select which social type. In a way the
British public school system is a system for generating not a finite
range of sentences, but social types. I know of no other middle class
which has the possibility of such a differentiated form of socialization.
(1975:18, his emphasis)
The statement that schools are `middle class' is therefore fairly mean-
ingless unless we know precisely how and in what ways. Schools are
institutions that have their own cultures and their own rules which are,
as Bernstein's body of work argues, underpinned by complex relations to
social class. It may be that there is greater congruence of values between
some homes and some schools, but this cannot be presumed.
Referring back to our `Destined for Success?' biographies again, the
schools our middle-class respondents attended had very different cul-
tures. Using Bernstein et al.'s (1966) distinction between the expressive
order (to do with conduct, character and manner) and the instrumental
order (concerned with the acquisition of specific skills and bodies of

knowledge) we were able to map out the dimensions of variation and
how different schools were òpen' or `closed' with social relations that
were respectively `differentiated' or `stratified' (Power et al., 1998a).
Through mapping these properties against family attributes, we were
able to show how middle-class children grew to be variously `com-
mitted', `detached', èstranged' or àlienated' throughout their educa-
tional careers. These complex responses help us to begin to undermine
another commonly held assumption about the middle class ± that suc-
cess is guaranteed.
The inevitability of middle-class success

There is often an implicit assumption within the sociology of education
that for the middle-class student academic progress is painless and a
successful path through higher education into a prestigious occupation
assured. That this is not always so, and the implications of this `failure',
is one of the most neglected areas of sociological research. There is no
doubt that proportionately middle-class children do better than work-
ing-class children ± but the extent of middle-class ùnderachievement' is
larger than is often assumed. For instance, even if we look back to the
tripartite system which was seen to sanction class advantages institu-
tionally, we find sizeable middle-class failure. Comparison of 11 pass
rates from two LEAs (Swift, 1965), shows that while it is the case that
only 2 per cent of children from social class VI passed the test, it is also
true that 46 per cent of those from Social Class I failed the test. If we look
at Social Class II, the majority of children (61 per cent) failed the test. In
connection with staying-on rates, one fifth (22 per cent) of boys from
Social Class I and nearly two thirds (61 per cent) from Social Class II left
school at 15 years of age or before (obtained from the 1961 census cited
in Meighan 1981).
Although the significant benchmarks of success have changed since
then, middle-class `failure' is by no mean uncommon. Our respondents'
profiles revealed high levels of success during the 1980s ± but many
achieved less than had been predicted. Even though the large majority
of respondents appear `successful', some of their retrospective accounts
communicate disappointment, regret and even outright hostility
towards their schools. The translation of educational promise into edu-
cational success is rarely easy or straightforward ± irrespective of socio-
economic background or kind of school attended. Half the interviewees
had some form of `troubled' or `broken' progression, even though the
majority `got there' in the end. A significant minority had to retake their
A-levels to achieve required entry qualifications, dropped out of their

initially chosen degree programme, entered or returned to higher educa-
tion after an unplanned period of casual employment, or failed to find
the kind of employment which they believed their graduate qualifica-
tions merited. Of course, it could be argued that middle-class failure does
not merit significant attention because it is less of a `problem' than work-
ing class failure. And certainly this is true on a societal level, even if on an
individual level middle-class failure can be extremely wounding. But, I
think there are analytical reasons which make exploration of middle-
class failure imperative, even apart from broadening our understanding.
Studies which concentrate on socio-structural explanations have no
way of accounting for middle-class failure ± and ignoring such excep-
tionality (which, as we have just seen, is perhaps less exceptional than is
often assumed) makes such explanations vulnerable. In particular, it
opens the door to those who would claim that while social background
does matter, individual attributes are at least as important. Èxception-
ality' then gets celebrated as evidence of indeterminacy or voluntarism.
The construction of the `bright' working-class and the `dull' middle-class
student (Saunders, 1996) actually endorses the assumptions of ability
and intelligence and works against sociology as the prevailing source of
explanation. Far better than either downplaying or celebrating such
exceptionality, we should surely, as sociologists, be attempting to un-
ravel it.
Middle-class attributes
Another by-product of using the middle class as a backdrop to studies of
the working class is that they take on characteristics only in contrast to
those attributed to the working class. This raises some interesting incon-
sistencies. At times the middle class is seen to be strategic and calculating.
This is particularly so in relation to parental interactions with their chil-
dren's schools and is most pronounced within many of the recent studies
from King's College London. In the study of parents and school choice
(for example Gewirtz et al., 1995), middle-class parents are presented as
`successful strategists' ± the `skilled choosers' who are able to operate in
the market place to advantage their children. In their study of post-16
strategists (Macrae et al., 1996), the middle class students are `calculating'.
In these studies, middle-class parents are portrayed in a manner which
is often pejorative. Their strategicness is seen as an example of selfish-
ness. Reay (1998c:145) claims that Ìn monopolizing scarce resources
within the state sector, deploying financial resources to secure children's
educational advantage and drawing on useful social networks which
excluded working class mothers, many of the middle-class women were

ensuring that the outcome of the educational competition was resolved
in their children's favour.' Not only does the empirical evidence suggest
that there is no such thing as ènsuring' educational success, but her
account also indicates a thinly disguised hostility towards the middle
class. Reay again, for instance, notes that:
. . . the white middle-class women queried neither the status quo nor
the inequalities it produced. There was an unexplored assumption,
underlying most of the white middle-class women's words, that the
educational system should be working to secure their ambitions for
their offspring without any contextualization of what that implied in
terms of the opportunities for other people's children.
(Reay 1998c:132)
Working-class parents are seen as less selfish. In relation to school

choice, for instance, `[t]here is a collectivity to choosing, in contrast to
the individuality of the child-matching strategies of the privileged'
(Gewirtz et al., 1995: 48). They are `disconnected' from the market and
tend to choose local schools `partly as a result of a positive attachment
to the locality and to going to school with friends and family' (183).
However, it is not just that their attributes are different, but that
working-class values and practices are better. While the working class is
described warmly in terms of community and solidarity, the middle
class is seen as calculating and competitive. The working class thinks
and acts collectively, whereas the middle class is individualistic. Because
the middle class is defined in opposition, however, other accounts pre-
sent them differently. Where the working class are attributed with
`savvy', the middle class are not presented as percipient strategists, but
as blinkered conformists. In Willis' account, for instance, it is the work-
ing-class `lads' whose understandings:
. . . involve a partial penetration of the really determining conditions

of existence of the working class which are definitely superior to
those official versions of their reality which are proffered through
the school and various state agencies.
(Willis 1977: 3)
Although Willis acknowledges that these penetrations work against

rather than for the success of individual students, it is the working-
class students who gain the respect of the ethnographer.2 The disdain
with which the largely middle-class conformists are held is apparent in

the following passage:
the term èar'ole' itself connotes the passivity and absurdity of the
school conformists for `the lads'. It seems that they are always listen-
ing, never doing: never animated with their social internal life, but
formless in rigid reception.
(ibid.14)
Like Reay, Ball, Gewirtz and their colleagues at King's College, Willis
holds that the working class act and think collectively. Indeed, he claims
that their grasp of the difference between individual and group logic leads
them to understand that conformism has no rewards for the working
class as a whole ± à profound critique of the dominant ideology of
individualism in our society' (1977: 129). While the distinction between
an individualistic middle class and a collective working class has the
attraction of analytical simplicity, it is often hard to identify. I find it
difficult to know what the difference is between `collective' and ìndivid-
ual' practice ± as most social practices are inevitably comprised of the
latter even if they arise out of, or have consequences for, the former.
Moreover, the distinction is often difficult to support empirically. Willis
himself concedes that working-class `collectivism' is only partial ± in
that ìndividuals are still behaving perhaps individualistically and com-
petitively in some things and in the private spheres of their lives' (129).
Conversely, Reay found middle-class mothers were very effective at
networking and working together (for example, organizing a petition)
to achieve their ends. Indeed she goes so far as to claim that `contem-
porary collective middle-class action has led to increasing class and racial
segregation' (Reay 1998c, 161, my emphasis).
Inadequate, inconsistent and partial representation of the middle
class may result from an attempt to value and validate the accounts
and experiences of the disadvantaged. As Gillborn (1998b) argues, there
is a frequent misreading of Becker's (1967, Becker cited in Verhoeven
1989) `Whose side are we on?', which suggests that sociologists have a
`kind of sentimental and quasi-political imperative . . . to side with ``the
underdog'' '. This appears to have led to a situation in which acknow-
ledging that the working class are unfairly disadvantaged also means
casting the middle class as the perpetrators of this unfairness. Indeed, in
the accounts of parental choice, middle-class parents are seen to be the
cause of recent policies which have further damaged educational equity.
Gewirtz et al., (1995), for instance, claim that the education market is a
`middle-class strategy' designed to preserve middle-class advantages that

had been eroded over recent years. They claim that their research shows
that the market is a middle-class mode of social engagement and that
schools are increasingly oriented towards meeting the perceived
demands of middle-class parents.
However, while the middle class clearly has more power, as conven-
tionally defined, than the working class, this does not mean that they
are all powerful. The position of the middle class is problematic. As
Mann (1993) argues, the `problem' of the middle class is usually seen
as a subset of a different class `problem' ± that of the relationship
between the capitalist and working classes. Orthodox Marxism would
place members of the middle class within the working class. It is some-
what surprising then that the sociology of education terms to place
them within what Mann (1993: 547) refers to as àn occasional pessi-
mistic Marxian response' and make them part of the ruling bourgeoisie
or capitalist class. It is perhaps more accurate to see them as occupying
an ambiguous, contradictory class location.
Conclusion
This chapter has sought to argue that the absence of a sociology of

education of the middle class has created a number of absences and
analytical inconsistencies within the sociology of education as a whole.
Examining the intimate relationship between education and the middle
class and the complex way in which schools foster differentiated
middle-class identities can throw light on some of the enduring issues
within the sociology of education. In particular, it can help illuminate
how `success' is constructed and distributed and how this success con-
tributes to social and cultural reproduction. The picture may become
more complex, but it is surely an important task for the sociology of
education to unravel such complexity rather than to ignore it or to use it
to celebrate indeterminacy.
Notes
1. These are somewhat similar to Mann's (1993, 549) three-fold division of the
middle class into the petite bourgeoisie (proprietors of small, familial busi-
ness), careerists (employees moving up corporate and bureaucratic hier-
archies) and professionals (`learned', collectively organized occupations
licensed by the state).
2. Although Willis does distance himself from the `lads' on occasions, at others
his allegiance is, at least implicitly, given to them.
11
Vultures and Third Ways:
Recovering Mannheim's Legacy
for Today
Geoff Whitty
Chris Woodhead (1998), until recently Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of

Schools, used a review of the reissued sociology of education volumes in
the International Library of Sociology, founded by Karl Mannheim in the
1940s, to attack contemporary education research in general and the
sociology of education in particular and to call for a return to the tradi-
tions of Mannheim's time. In response, while pointing to some obvious
limitations and contradictions in Woodhead's analysis, Michael Young
(1998, p.31) conceded that èducation research has certainly got to ask
some hard questions about its methodology, concepts and priorities
and . . . its links with teachers and policymakers'. In this chapter, I
consider how far the legacy of Karl Mannheim, after whom my former
chair at the Institute of Education, University of London, is named, might
still be of use to the sociology of education and to contemporary
education research and policy.
Background
Karl Mannheim left his native Hungary for Heidelberg in 1918 and
became Professor of Sociology at Frankfurt in 1930. He moved to England
from Germany in 1933 (staying briefly in Amsterdam on the way) and
worked in exile as a lecturer at the London School of Economics. He
took up British citizenship and was eventually appointed to the Chair of
Education at the Institute of Education in 1946, but unfortunately died
only a year later. Although Mannheim is best known for his work in
social theory and the sociology of knowledge, he devoted much of his
206
Vultures and Third Ways 207
time in England to work on the sociology of education and social

education (Kudomi, 1996).
Prior to Mannheim's appointment to the Institute, Sir Fred Clarke,
who was its Director during the Second World War, had argued the case
for a professor versed in sociological aspects of education in the follow-
ing terms:
The case for a professorship to work in terms of the sociological

approach may be related to the uneasy awareness, now so widespread
and yet so ill-defined, that great changes in the social order and the
inter-play of social forces are already in progress ± and that educa-
tional theory and educational policy that take no account of these
will be not only blind but positively harmful.
(Sir Fred Clarke, Director, Institute of Education, 18 March 1943)
Mannheim, of course, was an ideal choice to introduce such a per-

spective in the 1940s. And as Clarke (1967) said, in his memoir of
Mannheim, `the best tribute we can pay to him is to follow up and
develop the inspiration he gave' (p.169). In my view, the argument for
taking the wider view in the study of education is at least as strong now
as it was when Clarke was arguing the case for Mannheim's appointment
over 50 years ago. There is a similar widespread sense today that sig-
nificant but ill-defined changes in the nature of the social order are in
progress, as intimated ± but inadequately characterized ± by concepts
such as high, late and postmodernity.
A graphic, though perhaps unfortunate, metaphor for Clarke's notion
that educational researchers should take account of this broader con-
text, and use wider social theories to help to `make sense' of it, is a
`vulture's-eye view' of education. Apparently a vulture is always able to
keep the background landscape in view while enlarging its object of
immediate interest. However, useful as it may be, the analogy may not
quite capture the significance of the notion of the `bigger picture' in the
social world. Arguably, the bigger picture is not just òut there' in the
background. As Britain's leading contemporary social theorist, Anthony
Giddens (1994a), says of globalization, it is not something that takes
place beyond the local, it ìs an `ìn here'' matter, which affects, or rather
is dialectically related to, even the most intimate aspects of our lives'
(p.95). Education is similarly infused with, and dialectically related to,
the bigger picture.
Making these sorts of connections involves understanding the inter-
section between biography and history, between identity and structure
and between personal troubles and public issues ± what C. Wright Mills
(1961) termed the exercise of the `sociological imagination'. For Mills,
the exercise of the sociological imagination was certainly not a feature
of the work of all sociologists nor was it necessarily restricted to signed-
up members of that profession. But, for me, it is certainly a feature of
good educational research, whether or not it is undertaken by
sociologists. Thus, understanding changes in modern societies,
educational reform and the development of new identities ± and the
connections between them ± requires the exercise of the sociological
imagination, even if we do not choose to call it that.
The importance of the bigger picture
Martyn Hammersley (1996) has implied that explicit sociologizing

about education is now less common and, indeed, less necessary than
it used to be because something like Giddens' `double hermeneutic'
(Giddens 1984) has taken a sociological way of thinking about the
world into the common sense of other educators and educational
researchers. But even in the context of supposed `reflexive moderniza-
tion' (Beck et al., 1994), there is little evidence of the sociological imagin-
ation being exercised liberally in contemporary institutional and
political life: certainly not in whole swathes of politics and education
in Britain where research that is not empiricist or instrumental is under
severe attack for being irrelevant and self-serving. Yet, for a proper
understanding of the nature of what is happening in education the
vulture's-eye view is essential and the more cynical among us might
feel that is exactly why some of our politicians prefer us to take a more
myopic approach to our research.
Campbell Stewart, who knew Mannheim well and prepared his papers
on sociology of education for publication (Mannheim and Stewart
1962), remarked in the 1960s that `before long we shall need again to
call on the kind of perspective which Karl Mannheim could command
and which for the moment we seem to be too committed [to other
priorities] to realize we have lost' (Stewart 1967, p.37). Stewart was
particularly concerned about empiricism and an argument is now gain-
ing strength among policymakers in Britain that the only sort of educa-
tional research that is of any value is experimental research, based on
the medical model of Randomized Control Trials (RCTs). While I per-
sonally have no objection whatsoever to RCTs being part of the portfolio
of educational research methods, to define them as the only worthwhile
form of educational research is to trivialize the activity in potentially
damaging ways. Yet, today, just as in the days of Mannheim, too much
education policy and a great deal of contemporary educational research
has lost sight of Clarke's important insight that education policy needs
to be informed by a sensitivity to the nature of the wider society.
Mannheim's own concern about à tendency in democracies to discuss
problems of organization rather than ideas [and] techniques rather than
aims' (Mannheim, 1951, p.199) also remains pertinent today.
Although these concerns may seem less relevant to contemporary
sociology of education than some other aspects of educational research,
some work that is much closer to the sociology of education than RCTs
can have similar dangers. For example, classroom ethnographies, policy
evaluations, action research and life histories, even where they identify
themselves as critical, sometimes fail to take account of the `bigger
picture' (Goodson, 1997). Gerald Grace has long argued for the
importance of the `bigger picture' on the grounds that ` . . . too
many. . . education reformers have been guilty of producing naive
school-centred solutions with no sense of the structural, the political
and the historical as constraints' (Grace 1984, p. xii). Work on school
effectiveness and school improvement, which has attracted a number of
prominent sociologists of education in Britain, has often been among
the worst offenders, as one of its leading advocates, the previous
Director of the Institute, Peter Mortimore, has acknowledged
(Mortimore and Whitty 1997).
Far too much research, as well as education policy, remains stubbornly
decontextualized. An Australian sociologist of education, Lawrence
Angus (1993), rightly criticizes much of the school effectiveness research
for failing `to explore the relationship of specific practices to wider social
and cultural constructions and political and economic interests' (p.335).
Thus, he says, the apparent message in some of the work `that all
children can succeed at school provided teachers have expectations,
test them regularly, etc, shifts attention away from the nature of know-
ledge, the culture of schooling and, most importantly, the question of
for whom and in whose interests schools are to be effective' (p.342).
Certainly the more optimistic versions of work in this genre tend to
exaggerate the extent to which local agency can challenge structural
inequalities. Angus also suggests that a lack of engagement with socio-
logical theory can mean that such work is trapped in à logic of common
sense which allows it . . . to be appropriated into the Right's hegemonic
project' (Angus, 1993, p.343). Thus, it sometimes seems that not only
neo-liberal rhetoric, but also some forms of research, take the discursive
repositioning of schools as autonomous self-improving agencies at its
face value rather than recognizing that, in practice, the atomization of

schooling too often merely allows advantaged schools to maximize their
advantages. This only becomes clear when school-level reforms are
studied in their broader context.
I now want to draw on my own area of research on the sociology of
education policy to consider how we might understand the reforms that
are going on in that field through looking at both the detail and the
bigger picture. I explore a number of distinct but loosely interrelated
issues. The first is to what extent the broader developments ± sometimes
of global proportions ± are, in Giddens' sense, ìn there' in the politics of
contemporary education reform. Second, I discuss ways of researching
the impact of reform at societal and individual levels. Third, I examine
the relationship between diagnosis and intervention and the extent to
which the work of sociologists of education might usefully inform
education policy. Finally, I consider how far what I am advocating
relates to contemporary notions of a `third way'. As in the case of
Mannheim's writings, my explorations of these issues do not yet con-
stitute a coherent whole. There are disjunctions, and possibly even
inconsistencies, between them. Hopefully, though, generous readers
will regard them as part of a `dynamic totality' ± the euphemism
Mannheim's intellectual biographer (Loader, 1985) used to characterize
the less than systematic nature of his works!
In what follows, I shall not be adopting a Mannheimian perspective as
such, even insofar as it is possible to discern a consistent one in his own
corpus. I do not share some of Mannheim's own assumptions about the
nature of society and social order, nor (hardly surprisingly) is my
immediate focus of interest the same as his. But, as Loader (1985,
p.189) puts it, ìf many of [Mannheim's] answers can be rejected, the
questions he raised . . . cannot'. I shall, therefore, be following what I
take to be the spirit of his approach in seeking to make connections and
think relationally.
Understanding education reform
It is clear that, in many parts of the world, there is a move away from the
òne best system' of state-funded and state-provided education. Recent
reforms have sought to dismantle centralized bureaucracies and create
in their place devolved systems of schooling with an emphasis on con-
sumer choice by parents and competition between increasingly diversified
types of schooling. Sometimes, alongside these elements of deregulation,
there have also been new systems of inspection and accountability.
Although these developments are sometimes described as `privatiza-

tion', and in some cases do include elements of privatization, it is difficult
to argue that education has actually been privatized on any significant
scale. If we look strictly at the issue of funding, or even at provision in
most countries, marketization is a better metaphor for what has been
happening in relation to education. This most often refers to the devel-
opment of `quasi-markets' in state-funded and/or state-provided services,
involving a combination of increased parental choice and school
autonomy, together with a greater or lesser degree of public accountability
and government regulation (Levacic, 1995). However, if mass education
systems have not usually been privatized in the strictly economic sense,
there is more evidence of `privatization' in the ideological sense of
transferring decisions that might formerly have been made by the state
and its professional employees to the private decisionmaking sphere of
individuals and their families (Whitty and Power, 2000).
Most advocates of choice and school autonomy base their support on
claims that competition will enhance the efficiency and responsiveness
of schools and thus increase their effectiveness. Many hope that market
forces will overcome a levelling-down tendency which they ascribe to
bureaucratic systems of mass education, while others see them as a way
of giving disadvantaged children the sorts of opportunities hitherto
available only to those who can afford to buy them through private
schooling or their position in the housing market (Moe, 1994; Pollard,
1995). Even the political rhetoric of parties of the left places an increas-
ing emphasis on diversity and choice in education, as in the case of New
Labour in Britain.
However, my own reading of the evidence (Whitty, 1997a; Whitty et
al, 1998) suggests that the more optimistic claims for such policies are
unlikely to be realized in the absence of broader policies that challenge
deeper social and cultural inequalities. As the new discourse of choice,
specialization and diversity replaces the previous one of common and
comprehensive schooling, there is a growing body of evidence that,
rather than benefiting the disadvantaged, the emphasis on parental
choice and school autonomy is further disadvantaging those least able
to compete in the market (Gewirtz et al., 1995; Lauder et al., 1994; Smith
and Noble 1995). At the same time, it is increasing the differences
between popular and less popular schools on a linear scale ± reinforcing
a vertical hierarchy of schooling types rather than producing the prom-
ised horizontal diversity. For most members of disadvantaged groups,
as opposed to the few individuals who escape from schools at the
bottom of the status hierarchy, the new arrangements seem to be just
a more sophisticated way of reproducing traditional distinctions

between different types of school and between the people who attend
them.
It is too easy to accuse the perpetrators of such policies of bad faith.
Even if there is some plausibility in the argument that handing decision
making down to schools and parents is a clever way of èxporting the
crisis', it is the misrecognition of the context that is more significant. As
Amy Stuart Wells (1993) points out, the economic metaphor that
schools will improve once they behave more like private, profit-driven
corporations and respond to the demands of `consumers' ignores critical
sociological issues that make the school consumption process extremely
complex. Her own research in the USA suggests that escape from poor
schools will not necessarily emerge from choice plans because `the lack
of power that some families experience is embedded in their social and
economic lives' (p.48). Similarly, Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe (1992) suggest
that, in the case of England, the new arrangements for school choice
discriminate against those who have more pressing immediate concerns
than being an educational `consumer'. In their subsequent work
(Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe 1995), they draw upon the theories of Bourdieu
and Passeron (1977) to explore `the logic that informs the economy of
cultural goods', which helps explain the class-related patterns of advan-
tage and disadvantage they identify. Contrary to Woodhead's dismissal
of such work as being irrelevant to an understanding of what goes on in
schools and to raising standards, it helps us to make sense of the (often)
unintended consequences of reform.
Sociology of education can thus help us to understand why, whatever
the advocates of school choice might believe, the provision of new
choices to individual families is unlikely to overcome deep-rooted pat-
terns of structural and cultural disadvantage. Some of this work has clear
resonances with Mannheim's. Not surprisingly, Mannheim favoured
some forms of selection in education, but he also questioned the view
that `struggle and social competition always foster and select those who
are the best according to an absolute standard of worth'. In doing so, he
contrasted òbjective abilities' with `social abilities' including `pulling
strings and discovering influential patrons' (Mannheim, 1957, p.85).
While not dismissing the importance of competition, he saw the dan-
gers of it going too far and stressed the necessity of co-operation. He also
contrasted what he called `the new democratic personalism' with `the
atomized individualism of the laissez-faire period' and emphasized the
need to break down `the frustration which comes from isolation,
exaggerated privacy and sectarianism' and sought to mobilize instead
`the forces of group living in the service of a social ideal' (Mannheim,

1943, p.52).
Atomized decision making in a highly stratified society may appear to
give everyone equal opportunities, but transferring responsibility for
decision making from the public to the private sphere may remove the
possibility of collective action to improve the quality of education for
all. Since educational disadvantage has multiple causes, tackling it
requires strategies that bring different groups and agencies together
rather than expecting individual families to seek their own salvation.
Indeed, significant and sustainable improvement is only likely to be
achieved as part of a broader strategy of social and economic change.
Indeed, Jean Anyon (1995) may even be right to argue that the real
`solution to educational resignation and failure in the inner city is the
ultimate elimination of poverty and racial degradation' (p.89).
This means that there must be limits to the extent to which individual
schools and their teachers can be expected to overcome these problems.
Yet recent governments, of both political hues in Britain, as well as the
former Chief Inspector of Schools, have too often felt that the solution
lies in the `naming and shaming' of schools and teachers that do not live
up to their expectations. Many of the strategies for `re-forming' the
teaching profession can be seen when examined through the lenses of
sociology of education as sometimes cynical, but more often misguided,
attempts to `shift the blame' for educational failure and growing
inequality from the state to individual school managers and teachers.
As indicated earlier, similar reforms can now be found in many parts
of the world. They are partly a response by nation states to the impact of
globalization and their need to confront perceived threats to stability
and competitiveness ± both from within and without. However, as Weiss
(1993) argues, it is likely that policies of devolution and choice can
provide only a temporary solution. Green (1996) suggests that even
the current degree of responsibility taken by national governments for
public education may not be enough às the social atomization induced
by global market penetration becomes increasingly dysfunctional. With
the decline of socially integrating institutions and the consequent
atrophy of collective social ties, education may soon again be called
upon to stitch together the fraying social fabric' (p.59). While the
demise of some forms of national solidarity may be long overdue, the
general atrophy of collective ties and consequent loss of notions of
citizenship which Green predicts must surely be cause for concern.
The issue then becomes one of establishing how education might best
help reconstruct the social fabric and new conceptions of citizenship
and who shall influence its design. These questions are reminiscent of
Mannheim's concerns with social reconstruction in Europe following
the upheavals of the 1930s and 1940s and with his own concern to
develop social education for democratic citizenship (Mannheim, 1943).
Researching the impact of education reform
The impact of recent reforms on coming generations can only be a

matter of conjecture, but it does seem clear that the very structures of
education systems and their associated styles of educational decision-
making impinge upon modes of social solidarity and forms of political
consciousness. In this way, education reform is, indeed, both an ìn-
here' matter, as well as a national and global phenomenon. This, of
course, raises classic questions concerning the relationship between
structure and agency and the extent to which they are either distinct
but interrelated aspects of social reality or one is ultimately reducible to
the other (Giddens, 1984; Willmott, 1999). Either resolution of the
structure±agency issue would indicate the limitations of the analogy of
the vulture's eye, but it remains a useful heuristic device for indicating
the need to combine different methods and analytic practices.
Stephen Ball (1994, p.14) writes of the need in policy analysis for a
`toolbox of diverse concepts and theories'. In doing so, he cites approv-
ingly Ozga's (1990) plea to `bring together structural macro-level analy-
sis of education systems and education policies and micro-level
investigation, especially that which takes account of people's perceptions
and experiences' (p.359). Such a toolbox of concepts and theories is
necessary to explore the different levels of analysis and the interconnec-
tions between them that have been outlined above. Rather like using the
different lenses in the vulture's eye, it is necessary to employ a variety of
methods to explore the different elements of the picture at the same
time.
This is something we tried to do in a study of the impact of different
forms of selection for secondary education in England. In this study
(Power et al, 2000), we traced the careers of a cohort of 350 students who
were all assessed as of high academic ability at age 11 in the early 1980s.
Some attended elite private schools as fee-payers, while some from
poorer families received government assistance under the terms of
what was arguably the Thatcher government's first `marketising' meas-
ure (Edwards et al., 1989). Others went to selective or non-selective
state schools in the same localities. Surveying them in their early
teens and mid-twenties, we were able to explore their experiences of
schooling, their higher education and their initial entry into the labour
market.
In one sense, our sample lent itself to a political arithmetic approach
in the tradition of the Oxford Mobility Studies (Goldthorpe, 1980;
Halsey et al., 1980). We were certainly interested in how the numbers
stacked up to reveal potential structural continuities and discontinuities
between the different groups, and between them and their parents'
generation. Our survey data yielded many tables demonstrating a clear
and apparently consistent influence of types of schooling on subsequent
experiences, outcomes and orientations. Yet when we used our inter-
view data to look beyond the aggregate statistics, the situation proved to
be a great deal more complicated.
Although political arithmetic could provide a useful picture of the
general landscape, it could not capture the problematic nature of many
transitions or the instances of unexpected success or failure (Power et al.,
1998a). Like Jackson and Marsden (1966, p.26) in Education and the
Working Class, we have tried to `go behind the numbers . . . into the
various human situations they represent'. We have, therefore, tried to
reconstruct biographies, but not just for their immediate human inter-
est, absorbing as that has often been. The exercise has helped to high-
light that, even for middle-class and academically able pupils,
transitions which may appear `smooth' in aggregate figures can be any-
thing but smooth for some individuals; indeed one of our more counter-
intuitive findings was that as many as half of the transitions were
ìnterrupted' in some way even though the overall picture suggested a
fairly unproblematic reproduction of middle-class careers and middle-
class identities. This might seem to raise questions about the value of the
`bigger picture' as it appears in the less powerful lens.
But there is also a danger of over-individualising biographies to the
extent that each one is exceptional with little way of grasping the extent
or dimensions of exceptionality. We have, therefore, used them to try to
understand the cultural interplay between home and school and to try
to theorize the processes through which individuals `construct' their
careers. So, although we have focused in from the aggregate statistics
to the individual cases, we have then tried to refine the `bigger picture'.
By digging beneath the surface of its landscape, we have sought to
understand how its sedimented histories `get in' to those individual
biographies as well as how those individual biographies contribute to a
more complex bigger picture.
In attempting to go beyond both the structural dimensions of the
political arithmetic approach and the sheer individuality of biographies
as they are `lived out', we have rubbed the data up against various
theories. Recent work in class analysis based on rational action theory
(Breen and Goldthorpe, 1997) addresses some of the issues about why
some people choose one pathway and others avoid it and we found it
particularly helpful in explaining the careers of our most successful
young women in comparison with those of their mothers. However,
such theories seemed to underplay the cultural context in which deci-
sions are made. Although it may appear that the majority of our stu-
dents had acted `rationally' in choosing their careers, school and family
expectations were often at least as important as, and sometimes over-
rode, explicit or even implicit calculation of the odds of future material
or status gains.
We therefore found ourselves increasingly drawn back to some cur-
rently rather unfashionable theories. In exploring how people navigate
pathways or forge careers, and the role of the culture of institutions in
shaping aspirations, we have found Bourdieu and Passeron's (1977)
work, and potentially even their concept of `habitus', rather more useful
than John Goldthorpe (1996) (or, indeed, Chris Woodhead) suggests.
We have also revisited the work of an earlier holder of the Karl Mannheim
Chair of Sociology of Education, Basil Bernstein, and found some of his
1970s work particularly useful in understanding the complexity of the
middle classes, and their symbolic resources (Power et al., 1998b).
From diagnosis to intervention

At the end of that particular study we concluded that, although it was
relevant to policy and practice, it could not lead to straightforward
policy prescriptions. However, I now want to consider whether there
might be any legitimate role for sociologists of education in moving
beyond diagnosis to prescription about possible interventions, as
Mannheim clearly did in his later years. Jean Floud (1959) has argued
that he would have done better to continue `to try to understand and
diagnose, rather than to plan and legislate' (p.62). But, although
Mannheim developed a now unfashionable faith in what he called
`planning for freedom', it is arguable that, after the experience of
neo-liberal deregulation, his concern to counter the damaging effects
of atomization and a laissez-faire society once again has considerable
pertinence. Madeleine Arnot (1998) has certainly suggested that it is
salutory to re-read Mannheim in the current context of `heightened
individualism and atomism in society'.
So, nothwithstanding a proper caution about the difficulties of con-
trolling anything in today's `runaway world' (Shilling 1993), we should
not assume that laissez faire is the only, or the best, way of confronting
our present `troubles'. I would argue that sociology of education can still
play a role here, at least in so far as it can help to make sense of the
broader context of educational reform and demonstrate its immense
complexity. Beyond that, the role of the sociologist becomes less
distinctive and more hazardous. Mannheim himself said of political
sociology that ìt must teach what alone is teachable, namely, structural
relationships; the judgements themselves cannot be taught but we can
become more or less adequately aware of them and we can interpret
them' (Mannheim, 1936, p.146).
This might seem to suggest that, in order to avoid the hazards, socio-
logists should confine themselves to what Stephen Ball terms studies of
education policy rather than studies for policy (Ball, 1994). But,
although it follows from what I said earlier that work which recognizes
the bigger picture is to be preferred to the myopia and narrow instru-
mentality of much official activity in education, I am not myself arguing
for an ivory tower or blue skies approach to sociology of education and I
do not claim that our work should be entirely isolated from policy and
practice. Nor, despite its attractions, do I think our relationship to policy
should consist only of the `semiotic guerrilla warfare' implied by a post-
structuralist and deconstructionist view of the role of theory (Ball,
1995). Like Mannheim, I am still committed to a version of the `mod-
ernist' project in social research, though hopefully somewhat more
reflexive about its own limits and possibilities than he was, particularly
in his later work. Certainly, as Mannheim recognized, different lenses
give different takes on social reality. Even vultures come at the same
object from different angles and are sometimes blinded by the sun. But I
do want to claim that, at the present time, some lenses are more power-
ful than others in helping us to see what is at stake in education and the
limits and possibilities of professional and political interventions.
Furthermore, while British sociology of education itself seems to have
become more isolated in the academy in recent years and somewhat
disengaged from wider social movements, grander theorists such as
Anthony Giddens seem to be taking social theory back to its wider
concerns and showing a willingness to go beyond diagnosis and try to
address the political challenges posed by the changing social order they
are studying. Giddens notes that òn each side of the political spectrum
today we see a fear of social disintegration and a call for a revival of
community', and argues for the development of a `dialogic democracy'
in keeping with his analysis of the nature of the age and its attendant
dangers (Giddens, 1994b, p.124). Though he may not recognize it, this is
a truly Mannheimian project, albeit one shorn of its confidence and

certainty.
In my own book, Sociology and School Knowledge, I suggested that `the
practical implications of [sociological] work for. . . political and
educational practice [are] as much concerned with the ways in which
policy is made as with specific substantive policies' (Whitty, 1985, p.82).
Given the limitations of recent marketising reforms, which have
atomized education decisionmaking, I shall conclude here with some
observations concerning alternative modes of decisionmaking that
could be more democratic and inclusive.
Whatever the rhetoric of devolution may suggest, it is quite clear that,
in many countries, significant constituencies have remained excluded
from education policy and decisionmaking either intentionally or, just
as often, as an unintended consequence of decisions made with the best
of intentions but without the benefit of the vulture's-eye view. The
result, as I implied earlier, is that recent market-oriented reforms have
often led to advantaged schools and advantaged families increasing
their advantage, certainly in the initial stages of reform (Gorard and
Fitz, 1998). Yet, even a cursory examination of the social processes
involved in choice would have identified this as a likely outcome.
If equity and social cohesion are to remain important considerations
within education policy, there is an urgent need to balance consumer
rights with a new conception of citizen rights to give voice to those
excluded from the benefits of both social democratic and neo-liberal
policies. Insofar as social relations are becoming increasingly accommo-
dated in the notion of the strong state and the free economy (Gamble,
1988), neither the state nor civil society is currently much of a context
for active democratic citizenship through which social justice can be
pursued. Foucault (1988) pointed out that what he called new forms of
association, such as trade unions and political parties, arose in the 19th
century as a counterbalance to the prerogative of the state and that they
acted as a seedbed of new ideas on governance. The reassertion of
citizenship rights in education would now seem to require the develop-
ment of a new public sphere somehow between the state and a market-
ized civil society, in which new forms of collective association can be
developed. But the real challenge is how to move away from atomized
decisionmaking to the reassertion of collective responsibility for educa-
tion, without recreating the sort of overcentralized planning favoured
by Mannheim, and whose shortcomings in the social democratic era
have helped to legitimate the current tendency to treat education as a
private good rather than a public responsibility.
If new approaches to collective decisionmaking are to be granted

more legitimacy than previous ones, careful consideration will need to
be given to the composition, nature and powers of new institutional
forms if they are to prove an appropriate way of reasserting democratic
citizenship rights in education in the 21st century. They will certainly
need to respond to critiques of conventional forms of political associ-
ation in modern societies. While market forms are part of a social text
that helps to create new subject positions which undermine traditional
forms of collectivism, those forms of collectivism themselves often
failed to empower many members of society, including women and
minority ethnic groups.
A new politics of education will therefore need to reflect a conception
of citizenship that entails creating unity without denying specificity
(Mouffe 1989). In Nancy Fraser's (1997a) terms, it will have to combine
the politics of recognition with the politics of redistribution if it is really
to put social justice back at the heart of the educational agenda. Even if
the social democratic era looks better in retrospect ± and in comparison
with neo-liberal policies ± than it did at the time, that does not remove
the need to rethink what might be progressive policies for the next
century. If we do not take the opportunity to do this, we may even
find the policy agenda dominated by those radical rightist commenta-
tors who will foster the very forms of individualism and competition
that Mannheim saw as such a threat to the future of liberal democracies
(Tooley, 1996).
Outside the sociology of education, there is rather more consideration
of alternatives to markets as a response to the challenge of `post' or `high
modernity'. Indeed, there is currently a great deal of discussion among
social and political theorists in Britain and elsewhere about ways of
democratising the state and civil society. In the USA, Joshua Cohen
and Joel Rogers (1995) take the view that it is possible to improve the
practical approximation, even of market societies, to egalitarian demo-
cratic norms. They argue that, by altering the status of `secondary
associations' within civil society, associative democracy can ìmprove
economic performance and government efficiency and advance egali-
tarian±democratic norms of popular sovereignty, political equality, dis-
tributive equity and civic consciousness' (p.9). It may even be that,
especially on a global scale, the Internet has a role to play here, though
I am by no means as convinced as some that it is a democratic medium
and we would need to be as alert as Mannheim (1943) was in the case of
other media to its totalising and totalitarian possibilities. He was con-
cerned about the growth of `social techniques' that penetrate deep into
our private lives and subject `to public control psychological processes
which were formerly considered as purely personal'.
Third ways?
In the context of the confrontation between fascism and Stalinism in

Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, Mannheim was suspicious of the totalis-
ing narratives and social techniques employed by both left and right.
Recently, and in another parallel with Mannheim ± though with no
reference to him ± Giddens (1998) has written about a `Third Way'
in politics. But, while Mannheim's (1943) `Third Way' lay between a
laissez-faire approach and totalitarianism, Giddens' own version of the
notion is an alternative to conventional social democracy and neo-
liberalism. He suggests it is time to move beyond the old dualism of
left and right, so perhaps the metaphorical vulture's role here is not so
much to provide analytic lenses as to pick over and finally dispose of the
corpses of outdated ideologies.
Giddens' Third Way claims to be not just a mid-point between two old
political ideologies, but the creation of a new and heterodox alignment
of ideas which recognizes that our new times may render many former
political certainties obsolete. The focus is thus on `what works', rather
than on ideologies and utopias. This also gives greater scope than in
grand narrative politics for a recognition of diverse and flexible local
identities typical of high or late modernity. Giddens believes New
Labour is already moving in the direction of his Third Way and looks
to Tony Blair's leadership in Britain for a new approach to government
that will renew civil society through greater transparency and experi-
ments with democracy. This could revive the notion of community, as
well as creating a new mixed economy through the synergies of public,
private and voluntary sectors. In doing so, it would transcend both the
egalitarianism of the old Left and the acceptance of inequality by the
new right and replace these with the concept of social inclusion.
It is certainly possible to argue that at least one of New Labour's
policies, Education Action Zones (EAZs), prefigures a new, more inclu-
sive politics of education and fulfils Giddens' (1998, p. 79) vision of
Third Way politics working at community level to provide practical means
of fostering social inclusion and furthering the social and material refur-
bishment of local areas (Power and Whitty, 1999). This policy entails
public, private and voluntary sectors working together to improve edu-
cation in areas of multiple social disadvantage and persistent under-
achievement. In theoretical terms, it might be located within the
currently fashionable `social capital' theories (for example Putnam,

1993), which suggest that interventions that increase `social capital'
can lead to consequent improvements in the educational achievement
and economic prosperity of disadvantaged communities. And, at least in
theory, the Education Action Forums, which are intended to bring
different groups together to run EAZs, could be used to facilitate those
èxperiments with democracy' envisaged by Giddens as part of the way
forward in the 21st century.
However, New Labour has hitherto seemed far keener to encourage
the involvement of private enterprise in EAZs, and to deregulate educa-
tion within them, than it has been to foster new forms of civic associ-
ation among local residents. Therefore, I remain sceptical about the
extent to which the reality, as opposed to the rhetoric, of this particular
policy lives up to its claims to be the harbinger of a distinctive new Third
Way in the politics of education. Furthermore, when we look across the
whole range of New Labour's policies for a `world-class' education sys-
tem, there can be little doubt that Tony Blair's version of the `Third Way'
is skewed heavily to the right. It is, of course, too early to predict with
any confidence the longer term impact of New Labour's programme of
educational reform, but the record so far suggests that those who want a
genuinely alternative reform agenda to supersede the neo-liberal
response to globalization and changes in modern societies may have
to look elsewhere.
Interestingly, Chris Woodhead even calls for a `third way' for the
sociology of education, as an alternative to what he characterizes as
`the ethnomethodological road' and the `macro-explanatory' route.
This involves, among other things, a return to the subject's `classical
terrain' in an effort to regain the ìntellectual high ground it occupied
when Karl Mannheim began putting his library together' (Woodhead,
1998, p. 52). I have tried to show that, as the former Chief Inspector
might have realized had he not `given up' reading the journals, such a
tradition is not entirely dead. Indeed, my own view is that his
dichotomous characterization of the field applies more to the 1970s
and 1980s than to the 1990s. Nor, as will be clear from this chapter, do
I accept that contemporary sociology of education is entirely irrelevant
to education policymaking. However, further application of
Mannheim's legacy to the contemporary educational scene would not
necessarily lead to research findings that Woodhead himself would wish
to see, any more than it would necessarily lead to the policies of New
Labour.
Acknowledgement
This chapter draws on work carried out with Tony Edwards, Sharon
Gewirtz, David Halpin and Sally Power, but they do not necessarily
subscribe to the conclusions I have drawn from it here.
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Index
Abercrombie, N. 168 Tertiary Entrance Examinations

Acker, J. 38 (TEE) 131, 132, 134
Acker, S. 32, 42 Vocational Education and Training
Adams, D. 163, 164 (VET) 2±3, 119, 120, 128, 140
Addou, H. 170
African Americans 56 Bagley, C. 187
students 189 Ball, S.J. 21, 27, 42, 181, 183, 185,
African Caribbean heritage 65, 69, 186, 190, 194, 204, 212, 214, 217
84 Barrett, M. 31
African Charter on People's Basic Skill Agency 161
Rights 145 Bates, I. 44, 182
Ahmed, M. 174 Bearne, J. 146
Albanian `parallel' education system Beck, U. 44, 119, 121, 133, 194
155 Becker, H.S. 204, 208
Allatt, P. 190 Beck-Gernsheim, E. 194
Almond, G.A. 175 Belenky, N.S. 36
Altbach, P.G. 164 Benavot, A. 178
Althusser, L. 19 Benhabib, S. 57
American Psychological Association Bennell, P. 145, 172
The Cleary Committee 80 Berger, P. 199
Anderson, C.L. 16 Bernstein, Basil 28, 38, 153, 198, 200,
Angus, Lawrence, 209 216
Anyon, J. 38, 213 `Pedagogic Codes and their
Apple, M. 146 Modalities of Practice' 28±9
Archer, M. 148 Beveridgean welfare 55
Armer, M. 175 Bhatti, G. 85
Arnot, M. 30, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, Bird, J. 101
46, 68, 216 Birenbaum-Carmeli, D. 181
Asia Development Bank 165 Blackburn, R.M. 193
Australia 2, 119, 122, 128 Blackmore, J. 42, 45
employment 129±30, 131, 136 Blair, M. 182, 197
Enterprise Business Center 128, Blair, Tony 14, 94, 220
130 `Third Way' 221
Margaret River Food and Wine see also New Labour
Festival 124 Blaug, M. 172
Parents and Citizens Committee Boltanski, L. 188
(P&C) 189 Bonnett, A. 100±18
Secondary Education Bourdieu, Pierre 28, 38, 183, 184,
Authority 137 186, 188, 212, 216
247
248 Index
Bowe, R. 181, 190, 212 teaching 146, 168, 176±8

Bowles, S. 19, 38, 173 Clarke, Sir Fred
Brah, A. 32, 40 Director, Institute of Education
Brantlinger, E. 194 (1943) 209; need for
Braungart, M.M. 176 sociologial approach 207
Braungart, R.G. 176 class 8, 17, 45, 46, 65, 133, 153, 156,
Breen, R. 216 157
Brehony, K.B. 27 difference 68, 128, 193; favoured
Brine, J. 42 pupils 83, 86, 90±2, 95
British Cohort Study (1970) 197 expansion of `middle class
British Journal of Sociology of groups' 119, 127, 180,
Education 12 182±3; difference 198, 202±5,
Broaded, C.M. 176 215
Brown, Courtney new IQism 79, 82, 95
US environment policy, damage on parents' interventions 181, 183±5;
globe 150 school choice 132, 185±7, 218;
Brown, P. 181, 183, 184, 195 voice 188±93
Budge, D. 87 `risk manager' 192
Burt, Cyril, Sir 95, 98±9 n `surplus' of qualified
Butler, J. 41 professionals 184
Butler, T. 181, 182, 184, 196 theories 32±3, 37, 215; conflict
Bynner, J. 197 theory 167
Byrne, Eileen 31 working-class girls 38±9
see also schools, Patrick Hutber
Callaghan, James Coffield, F. 103
Ruskin College Speech (1976) 18 Cohen, Joshua 219
capitalism 55, 58, 60, 66, 121, 167, Collins, R. 28
205 Commission for Racial Equality
Cardy, H. 40 (CRE) 100
Carnoy, M. 173 Commission on Social justice 54±5:
Carr, W. 146 `Citizens' Service' 55
Carrington, B. 115, 117 Comparative Education 164
Carter, E. 128 Comparative Education Review 164
Carter, J. 46 complex adaptive systems
Children's Rights Office 146 (CASs) 149±61
Chisholm, L. 44 Albanian `parallel' education
Chodorow, N. 36 system 155±6
Chubb, J. 66 catastrophe theory 150
citizenship chaos and complexity theory 149,
`Citizens' Sevice' 55 151±3, 157, 161, 162;
`conscientization' 168 `concept of emergence'
feminist sociological 47 154, 156, 157, 162; stability
globalislism 145, 176; loss and sudden change 154±5,
of 213±14 161
rights in 21st century 219 memory and modeling 154±5
Index 249
resistance theory 156±7 Department for Education and

Connell, R.W. 32, 35, 37, 38, 45 Employment (DfEE) 73, 76, 100,
Gender and Power 33 101, 107, 145, 146, 161
Connolly, P. 85 Development Education
Conservatives see Margaret Thatcher, Association 145
government Dietz, M. 36, 37
Coombs, P.H. 172 Dillabough, J. 30, 34, 35, 37, 38,
Council for the Accreditation of 39, 47
Teacher Education 18 Dore, R.J. 172
Crompton, R. 180, 195 Douglas J.W.B. 17
Crosland, Anthony 15 Drew, D. 80
Crowther Report 15 Dronkers, J. 173
curriculum 23, 36, 42, 79, 160 Du Bois Reymond, M. 44
`curriculum overload' 115 Duncan, J. 126
development education 146 Dunleavy, P. 193, 199
`hidden' 168 Durkheim, E. 159
National Curriculum 67, 92, moral order 31
147
Third World 169, 175 Eade, D. 158
rights on shaping societies 160
Dale, R. 13, 20, 24, 25 Easton, P. 173
Darby. D. 102 Ebert, T. 56
David, M. 31, 39, 42, 46, 68 economics 152, 154
Davies, Bronwyn 41, 42 class differentiation 181±3, 193,
Davies, L. 146, 147, 155, 157 197, 201; conflict theory
Davis, A. 40 167±8
Dawtrey, L. 46 development 143±4, 146, 159,
Dearing Report (1997) 102, 103 160, 164±70; NGOs 160; with
Deem, Rosemary 27, 31 democracy 142, 219, 220,
Delacroix, J. 175 221
Delamont, S. 34, 198, 200 education 74, 75, 94, 145, 164,
Delhi, K. 42 171, 173±4, 211, 221; negative
Demaine, Jack 94, 100±18 effects of 172±3
Contemporary Theories in the globalization 59, 119, 122±3,
Sociology of Education 1 178±9, 182
democratization 148, 220 human capital 166, 170, 172±3;
education for democracy 146; surveys 170±1, 174±5
Education Action Forums labour markets 44, 173, 183, 190,
221 191, 193, 215
global trends 142±4, 159±60, `new middle class' 184±7, 196±9
176±8, 219 social dimensions 25, 31, 35, 38,
indicators 144±5 39, 46, 50, 55, 58, 61, 69, 80,
see also C.Leys 209, 212, 213, 218
Department for International `surplus' of qualified
Development 145 professionals 184
250 Index
Education Action Zones (EAZs) ethnicity in teaching 156

220±1 government Labour White Paper
education, comparative 163±79 Excellence in Schools 100; Green
critical approach 168±9 Paper Teachers: Meeting the
neo-liberal approach 166±7 Challenge of Change 100±1
postmodernist approach 60, Conservative rule 69±70
169±70 institutions' recruitment
radical approach 19, 54, 167±8, strategies 105±6, 109, 113±14,
173, 219 115±16, 117; `positive
theories 165±6 discrimination' 107±8, 110,
education market 187±8, 190, 195 116, 117
qualifications 197 interviews on ethnic teacher
education reforms 42, 66±70, 86, recruitment 102±3; location
210±14 factor 104±5, 116, 117
Conservative education 70, 94 negative images of teaching 108,
gender identification 46 116
Grant Maintained Schools and City racist attitudes 111, 114±15, 117
Technology Colleges 67, 71, school placement 112±13, 117;
75, 78 cultural difference 114±15
National Curriculum 66 student teachers 101±4, 108, 110
Standard Assessment Tasks support groups 112;
(SATs) 67, 78±9 language 113±14, 117
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of School Centred Initial Teacher
Schools 106, 213 Training (SCITT) 102, 104,
impact of 214±16: New 105, 113, 116
Labour 221 Rampton Report (1981);
market 217±19 Commission for Racial
social change through 39, 167±8, Equality 100
172, 188, 208 Postgraduate Certificate Education
Education Reform Act (1988) 66, 67 (PGCE) 101, 102, 103, 108±10,
Edwards, T. 214 111, 113±17
Egerton, M. 181±2 Teacher Training Registry
Ehrenreich, B. 184 (GTTR) 101, 102, 103, 107;
Ellsworth, E. 32, 41 critical of date 108, 116, 117
Elwood, J. 68 Higher Education Funding
Enterprise Business Center 128, Council 100; Widening Access
130 Initiative 109
Epp, J.R. 147 Teacher Training Agency
Epstein, D. 40, 42, 44, 46, 68 (TTA) 100, 101, 105, 106, 107,
Epstein, E.H. 163, 174 115, 117, 118; Performance
ESRC funded project 183±4, 186±7, Profiles 109; `Teaching in
190, 202 Mult-ethnic Britain' 100
ethnic identities 39, 65, 79, 82, 95, ethnographies 45, 189, 203, 209
219 Etzioni, Amitai
ethnic heritage 84±6, 95±7 notion of communitarianism 53±6
Index 251
Europe 157, 169, 220 Gaskell, J. 38

European citizenship 214 gender, 57, 133, 182, 192, 197±8
in schools 146, 177 CAS 156
Evans, D. R. 168 Human Development Report 144,
Eve, R. 150 145
Eysenck, H.J. 80 identities 35, 37, 41, 44±7, 121
`new managerialism' 42
FaÈgerling, I. 166, 176 male 37, 40, 45, 60; master
Featherstone, M. 193 narratives' 40;
feminism underachievement 44
Black 40 patterns in schooling 30, 31, 34±7,
liberal 30, 34±5 39±40, 42, 157, 171, 179, 181,
maternal feminism 35±7, 57, 59, 194
62 critices of 37 post-Fordist analysis 46
modernization theory 44±8; role of state 39
political theorist 47 women 37, 39, 43, 45, 56, 60, 95,
postmodernist 40; movement 195, 171, 200, 204, 219
fragmentation 39±40 `secondary labour market' 38;
post-structural 41±3; critics of 42; careers 215; teachers 32
marketization 42 see also R.W.Connell, feminisim
research 39, 34±5; research General Certificate of Secondary
girls 21±2, 38, 39, 44±5 Education (GCSE) 73, 74±5,
socialist 37±9; social reproduction 78, 79, 87±8, 99 n, 197:
theory 38, 42 tiering 87±8
theory in education 32, 156, Gewirtz, S. 42, 62, 181, 187, 191,
rationalistic, relational 33; 202, 203, 204, 211, 212
male domination 36, 37, 39 Giddens, A. 121, 123, 140, 148, 151,
women in education 1, 30, 37, 43 152, 197, 207, 208, 210, 214, 217,
youth cultural studies 43, 44, 45, 47 220
see also R.W.Connell, M. Foucault, `discursive penetration',
Mary Wollstonecraft unemployment 153
Fitz, J. 187, 218 `Third Way' 220
Floud, J. 16, 17, 216 Gilbert, P. 45
Ford, Julienne 16 Gilbert, R. 45
Foster, M. 43 Gillborn, D. 65, 68, 75, 85, 86, 87,
Foster, P. 102 94, 109, 204
Foucault, M. 41, 43, 56, 58, 149, 218 Gilligan, C. 36, 57
Frankfurt School 168 Gintis, H. 19, 38, 173
Fraser, N. 58, 182 Gipps, C. 68, 86, 109
politics of recognition 58, 62, 219: Glatter, R. 187
differences 62, 63 globalization 119, 120, 134, 219
Freeland, J. 120 citizenship and
Friere, Paulo 168 democratization 145±8; study
of 176±8
Gamble, A. 218 class structure 182
252 Index
globalization ± continued Labour 14, 15, 76, 87, 96, 211

development and democracy 157, reforms 46, 66, 70, 73, 76, 77, 90,
158, 217; accountability 211, 213, 218
158±60 social dimension 44, 173, 214
education reform 3, 142, 207, 210, statistical research on
213, 214, 221; policy 163±4 education 15
employment of the young 127±9, students' political view of 177
133, 136±7, 140; government Grace, Gerald 209
funding 129, 131 Gramsci, A. 38
human rights; UN General Green Paper `Teachers: Meeting the
Assembly 157±8 Challenge of Change' 100±1
information and communication Green, P.A. 85, 213
structures (I&C) 122, 140±1; Gusfield, J. 175
Internet 124±5, 126, 127, 128, Guskin, S.L. 194
132±3
mobilty 121 Hahn, C.L. 177
myths 126±8 Hall, S.
new `landscapes of exlusion' 127±8 view of social justice 56
notion of aesthetic reflexivity 121, Hallam, S. 86, 87
126, 127, 133, 140, 141 Halpin, D. 187
sociology of place 122: Halsey, A.H. 5, 7, 15, 16, 17, 215
manufacturing locality 123±5, Hammersley, M. 102, 208
128±9, 140±1; marketed Hanlon, G. 199
125±6, 128, 140 Harber, C.R. 146, 177
theory 166±7 Hartnett, A. 146
of a village school 133±40 Harvey, D.
World Bank 143±4, 221 view for social justice 56, 60±1
see also Courtney Brown Hatcher, R. 86, 94
Gold, A. 190 Hatton, E.J.
Goldthorpe, J.H. 215, 216 parents' interventions 190
Gomm, R. 102, Herrnstein, Richard 95, 96
Goodson, L. 209 The Bell Curve 80, 81, 82,
Gorard, S. 218 Hey, V.
Gordon, T. 47 The Company She Keeps 45
Gould, S.J. 80 higher education 178, 192, 197, 201,
Gouldner, Alvin 7 202, 215
government raised participation 184
Australia 120, 130, 131 Hill-Collins, P. 40
Conservative 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 69, Hirsch, F. 184
70, 71, 100, 154, 155 Hobbes, Thomas 58
critique of 30, 142, 147 Holland, J. 182
democratic 143, 144, 160, 178, 219 Holms, B. 163, 164
European 163 Holsinger, D. B. 175
funded facilities of education 172 Honneth, Axel
home-schools 193 on postmodern mutuality 58
Index 253
hooks, b. 40 Junn, J. 176

Hout, M. 188 Kahi, J.A. 175
Hughes, G. 54 Kamin, L.J. 80, 98 n
Human Development Reports Karabel, J 5, 7, 236
144±45, 146 Kearns, G. 126
human rights 3, 144±8, 209, 218 Keeves, J.P. 163, 164, 165
UN General Assembly 157 Keith, M. 128
chidren 160±1; Childen Rights Kelly, P. 120
Office, NSPCC 146 Kenway, J. 41, 42, 45, 120, 184
World Conference on Human Kirkpatrick, G. 146
Rights (1993) 158 Klees, S. 173
current colonization of Africa Kudomi, Y. 207
158 KWS settlement 8, 14, 15, 16
citizenships 219
HuseÂn, T. 165 Labour government 14, 15, 87
Hutber, Patrick Commission on Social Justice 54
The Decline and Fall of the Middle election of (1997) 25
Class and How It Can Fight New Labour 211, 220±1;
Back 196, 197 Welfare-to-Work scheme 55
policy statement 76
Ichilov, O. 176 welfare state reforms
Inglehart, R. 178 (1945±51) 15
Inkeles, A. 174, 175, 177 Lane, C. 80
Institute of Education, University of Langmead, D. 42
London 206, 207, 209 Labarea, D. 188
International Journal of Educational Lash, Scott 121, 122, 181
Development 164 Lather 40
International Library of Lauder, H. 211
Sociology 206 Lee, B. 86
Lee, M.J. 126, 183, 184, 193
Jacklin, C.N. 34 Lees, S. 36
Jackson, B. Leftwich, A. 160
Education and the Working good governance and
Class 215 democracy 160
James, S. 181, 184 Leonard, Peter
Jensen, A. 82 view of ethic of mutuality 58±9
Johnson, P. 80 feminist practice 57, 59
Johnson, R. 40 Lerner, D. 174
Jones, G. 101, 111 Levacic, R. 211
Jonsson, J.O. 184 Levin, H. 173
Jordon, B. 181, 184, 187, Leys, C. 159
192, 194 The Rise and Fall of Development
Joseph Rowntree Foundation Theory 158
(1995) 182 LLamas, I. 173
Juniper, Robert 124 Loader, C. 210
254 Index
Local Education Authorities Measor, L. 35

(LEAs) 66, 67, 71, 73, 95, 105 Meighan, R. 201
comparision of (11) 201 Meyer, John 8±9, 20
Lockheed, M.E. 170 on sociology of education 8±10
Lofti, A. 175 Middleton, S. 32, 42
London School of Economics 15, 206 Mill, John Stuart 170
Lowe, M. 133 Miller, D. 51
Lucas, R.E.B. 184 Millet, Kate 36
Luke, C. 33 Mills, C.W. 197, 208
Luttrell, W. 43 Minhas, R. 32, 40
Lynch, Kathleen 53±3 Mirza, H.S. 39, 40, 85, 182
Lyons, N. 36 Modood, T. 68, 102
Moe, T. 66, 211
Mac an Ghaill, M. 45, 85 Moock, P.R. 171
Maccody, E.E. 34 Mooney, G. 54
MacDonald, M. 38, 39 Moore, Rob 19, 20, 22±3, 46
Macey, D. 56 Mortomore, Peter, Director of
Macrae, Sheila 183 Insititute of Education 209
Maguire, Meg 101, 111, 183 Mouffe, C. 219
Mahony, P. 36 Murphy, P. 68
Majd-Jabbari, M. 194 Murray, Charles 95, 96
Malcolm, Noal The Bell Curve 80, 81
Albanian education system 155
Manji, F. 160 Nagel, T. 193
Mann, M. 205 Nathan, J.A. 177
Mannheim, Karl 4, 206±9, 214, 217 National Curriculum 66, 92, 147,
forms of selection 212±13 150, 154, 177
`planning for freedom' 216 NATO 156
social techniques' 219±20 Nayak, A. 100±18
`Third Way' 210, 220 Nehaul, K. 85
Manpower Sevices commission 18, neo-Fabianism 55
21 New Labour 4, 55, 94, 211, 220
Marsden, D. New Zealand Code of Social and
Education and the Working Class 215 Family Responsibility 194
Marshall, G. 180, 181 Niemi, R.G. 176
Martin, Jane 181, 184, 190 Noble, M. 211
Marxism 19±20, 23, 31, 32, 143, Noddings, N. 36
148, 151±2, 153, 165, 167, 173, NORAD 164
205 NSPCC 146
Mason, D. 101
Massey, D. 193 Oakes, J. 189
McFadden, M. 152, 156 Oakley, Ann 31
McGinn, N.F. 178 OECD 171
McLaren, A.T. 44 Office for Standards in Education
McRobbie, A. 38 (Ofsted) 26, 87, 147, 155
Index 255
`failing schools' 184 Randomized Control Trials

Ohrn, E. 157 (RCTs) 208±9
Open University 16, 19 Ranson, Stewart 184, 190
Osler, A. 100, 101, 111 Rawls, J. 49, 50, 51±2
Oxford Mobility Studies 215 Reay, D. 40, 180, 181, 187, 192, 194,
Ozga, J. 214 196, 200, 202, 203, 204
redistribution 182
Pakulski, J. 181, 182 Redley, M. 181, 184
Parker, C.S. 174 Remy, R.C. 177
Passeron, J.C. 38, 212, 216 Rennie, L. 45
Pateman, C. 47 Renshon, S.A. 176
Paulston, R.G. 163, 165 Richardson, R. 68
Perkin, H. 193, 199 Riseborough, G. 182
Phillips, A. 182 Roberts, K. 45
Philo, C. 126 Robertson , S. 25
Phoenix, A. 40 Rogers, Joel 219
Pile, S. 128 Roland, M.J. 36
Pollard, S. 211 Roman, Leslie 43
postcolonial 168, 169 Rust, V.D. 164
Postgraduate Certificate Education
(PGCE) 101, 102, 103, Sadler, D. 128
108±10, 111, 113, 114, 115, Sadovnik, R.A. 31
116±17 Saha, L.J. 166, 176, 179
Power, S. 45, 46, 187, 211, 214, 215, Said, E.F
216, 220 Orientalism 169
Destined for Success 199, 200 Salmi, Jami 147
Preston, P.W. 175 Saunders, P. 202
Price, B. 149 Savage, M. 181, 182, 183, 184, 196,
Probert, B. 120 198
Psacharopoulos, G. 171 schools 160±1, 168, 194
Putnam, R.D. affirmation action 167
social capital 54±5, 221 aid to development 145, 171
A±to±C economy; league tables 66,
QCA 146 67, 71±5, 82, 87, 89, 90, 94, 96,
97, 187
Rabinow, P. 56 binary divide 102, 105, 116
racisim 46, 65, 52±3, 56, 57, 70, 80, British Public schools 200
82, 95, 197, 147, 182, 213, choice of parents 42, 184±93, 202,
204 204±5, 210±12, 218; locality
Aboriginal 58±9 choice 203
integration programmes 189 class differences 198, 199,
schools 83±4, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95 203±5, 211±13, 218;
Raftery, A.E. 188 selective 199
Ragin, C. 175 Darwinian selection 149, 151
Rampton Report (1981) 100 Dearing Report (1997) 102, 103
256 Index
schools ± continued tripartite system 95, 201

democracy and citizenship violence in; four categories 147
teaching 47, 146±7, 159, see also ethnicity in teaching,
176±8 teachers, Vocational Education
difference in 66, 70, 71±2, 81,114; and Training 130, Chris
ethnic heritage 68±9 Woodhead
effect on third world adults 69, Schrag, Francis `Why Foucault
174±5 Now?' 23
ESRC; Èducation markets in the Schwille, J. 177
post-16 sector of one urban Scott, J. 41
locale' project 183±4; ` ``Little secondary education 16, 20, 86, 90,
polities'' ': schooling, 174±5
governance and parental Secondary Education Authority 137
participation' project 183±4, Selden, S. 81
186±7, 190±2, 202 selection principle 5±7, 16, 106, 214
ethnographic research 69±71, Britain (1950±95) 14±29; (1950±
73±4, 76, 83±5, 87, 89, 90±4, 96 75) 14±17; (1975±85)17±24,
free school meals (FSM) 71, 90±3, 96 (1985±97) 24±6; changes focus
gender 31, 34±6, 41±3, 70, 68, 90±2 and appproaches 17±20;
grant-maintained 67, 71, 187 Pyrrhic Victory 20
Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of changes in public sector 25
Schools 106, 213 New Sociology of Education 17
How developed is your school? redemptive purpose 7±10, 12, 17,
excercise 146 25, 28 location 10±13, 16±17;
IQ test 75, 79±82, 95±7; American teachers education 10±12;
Psychological Association context 13±14
80±1 theoretical and
leaving age; British Cohort Study methodological 24, 27±9
(1970) 197 Serna, I. 188
marketization 4, 190, 204, 211, Sewell, T. 45, 85, 86
212, 214 Sharpe, S. 44
middle-class institution 200±1; Shilling, C. 27, 152, 154, 156, 216
inevitability of success 201±3 Shiner, A. 102
primary 87, 173 Short, Geoff 100±18
racism in; `third space' 40, 83, 90, Sibley, D. 128
92±5 SIDA 164
Schooling in Capitalist America 19 Sikes, P. 35
comprehensive secondary 16, 20, Siraj-Blatchford, I. 101, 111
73, 86, 87, 90, 174±5 Skeggs, B. 44, 45
selection 70±3, 76, 86±7, 94, 96, Skelton, C. 100±18
97, 190, 212: setting 87, 96, Sklar, R. 159
187, 188: triage 88±90, 94: conception of democracy
GSCE tier 87±8, 90±3, 94 159±60
survey on schooling Smith, Adam 170
experiences 214±16 Smith, D.H. 174, 175
Index 257
Smith, Fay 100±18 decline of opportunities 12±13,

Smith, John 18, funded research 13, 19,
Commission on Social Justice 20±1, 26
(CSJ) 54±5 diagnosis to prescription 210,
Smith, T. 211 216±17
Smolicz, J.J. 175 feminist 22±3, 30, 32, 33, 35, 36,
social justice 2, 94, 143, 218 49; `sociology of women's
communitarian mutuality 53±6; education' 31
Commission on Social global trends; new role for
Justice (CSJ) 54; social 142
capital 54±5, 221; `Citizens KWS settlement 8
Sevice' 55 learn from feminist research 45
dangers of universalizing overlooked middleclass 198,
theories 56 204
`logic of redistribution' 51, 219; pressure to publish 26
opportunity 51±2 see also Basil Bernstein
defined 49±51, 60, 61, 65; South Africa 147
equality of opportunity, Spender, Dale 31, 36
equality of outcome 52; Standard Assessment Task (SATs)
equality of condition 53 67, 78±9
distributive 52±3, 55, 59, 62, Sternberg, Robert, J.
63, 160 Àbilities are forms of developing
economics 50 expertise' 81
New Labour Welfare-to-Work Stewart, W.A.C. 208
scheme 55; Education Stone, L. 32
Action Zones (EAZs) Stone, Maureen
220±1 The Education of the Black Child in
politics of recognition 58, 60, Britain 22
219; types of difference 62±3 Stuart Wells, A. 189, 212
postmodernist mutuality 56±9, 60, detracking programmes in US
61, 220 188
principles for researchers 50 Sukhnandan, L. 86
social inclusion 220 Sweet, R. 119
see also Iris Young Swift, A. 181, 201
sociolgists 3, 9, 15, 27, 45, 166, Taylor, Charles 58
197, 208, 217 teachers 93, 150, 159, 209
affected by selection principle 7 àgents of progressive change' 17
critical male on feminist Council for the Accreditation of
theoretical 39 Teacher Education 18
developing countries 164 criticism of 12, 24, 83±4, 184, 213
changes in fashion 6±7 defined as middle class 200
chaos and complexity theory 143, education 18, 20±2, 26, 146, 153
148 ethnicity 100; ethnic differential
criticizes of school treatment 84±6, 90, 94
improvement 209 parents 190
258 Index
teachers ± continued UN Declaration on the Rights of the

reforms, political control 10, 71; Child 145
National Curriclum 154 UN Food Programme 158
senior management teams UN High Commission for
(SMT) 74 Refugees 158
Teacher Training Agency (TTA) 25, UNDP 145, 146
26, 100, 101, 106, 107; taster UNESCO 144, 165
courses 105 United States of America 36, 66, 147,
view for àbility' 66, 74±9, 81±3, 175
87±90, 96±7, 190±1 American Psychological
violence, use of deviancy Association 80±1
theory 147, 148 communitarianism 53±6;
see also ethnicity in teaching diagnosis of 54
ten Dam, G. 44, 45 effect of US policy 150, 154
Tertiary Entrance Examinations improving market societies 177,
(TEE) 131, 132 219
Thatcher, Margaret 14, 69, 70, 94, 214 school marketization 212
The Asian Times 105 studies of schools; class
The Educational Supplement 143 differentiation 188±9
The New York Times 80 Urry, John 121, 122, 124, 126, 129,
The Voice 105 181
Third World 164, 165
literacy programmes 168, 174 Van der Ploeg S.W. 173
pupils heritage of 68±9 Verba, S. 175
schools: modernization 175 Verhoeven, J.C. 204
primary 173±4; effect on Vignoles, A. 103
adults 174±5: students' Vincent, Carol 181, 184, 190, 194
political view of Vocational Education and Training
government 177 (VET) 120±1, 128±9, 133
Thompson, J. agenda in schools 121, 130±2
Thurow, L.C. 184 courses 135; small business
Tomlin, Richard 100±18 management and
Tong, R. 36 enterprise 132±3
Tooley, J. 80, 102, 219 Structured Workplace Learning
Torney-Purta, J. 177 (SWL) 131, 133, 134±40
Toutounji, I. 86 Volman, M. 44, 45
Tregenza, K. 120
Tueros, M. 173 Wagner, D.A. 175
Turner, F. 154 Waldrop, M. 149, 155
TVEI schemes 20±1 Walford, Geoffrey 6±7, 244
Walker, J. 157
UDHR Walkerdine, Valerie 37, 41
UN General Assembly 157 Waters, M. 181, 182
UN Declaration of Human Watkins, P. 120
Rights 145 (1948) 145 Watkinson, A. 147
Index 259
Watson, B. 101, 111 Woods, P. 187

Weber, Max 167 World Bank 158, 164, 165
Weiler, H.N. 172 Priorities and Strategies for
Weiner, G. 32, 46, 68 Education 172
Weis, L. 44 trends in education 143±4
Weiss, M. 213 World Conference on Human Rights
welfare 59 (1993) 158
state reforms (1945±51) 15 World World II, end of
Keynesian Welfare State reconstruction 5, 66, 95, 164, 207
Settlement 8, 14±16 report on education; Èarly Leaving',
New Labour; Welfare-to-Work Crowther Report 15
scheme 55 Wright, C . 45, 85, 86
West, A. 39, 42
Whelahan, I. 35 Youdell, D. 65, 75, 87
Whitty, G. 94, 209, 211, 218, 220 Young, Iris 182
Sociology and School Knowledge 218 conception of justice 49, 59±63;
Williams, Raymond 8 `five faces of oppression'
Williamson, Bill 15 60±2; questions for education
Willis, J. 45 policy 63; `logic of
Willis, P. 38, 157, 200, 203 redistribution' 51±3, 62;
Willmott, R. 148, 152, 154, 214 freedom from oppression
Wollstonecraft, Mary 53, 62
A Vindication of the Rights of Women Young, Michael 17, 42, 47, 206
(1792) 34 Youtz, R. 175
Wolpe, A.M. 37 Yuval-Davis, N. 47
Wood, A. 68
Woodhead, Chris 106, 206, 212, Zukin, S. 126
216, 221
`third way' 4

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Sociology of Education Today

Also by Jack Demaine

BEYOND COMMUNITARIANISM: Citizenship, Politics and Education

Selection and editorial matter © Jack Demaine 2001

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of

ISBN 0–333–77828–6 hardback

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Introduction: Research in Sociology of Education Today

2 Feminist Sociology of Education: Dynamics, Debates

3 Rethinking Social Justice: A Conceptual Analysis

4 The New IQism: Intelligence, `Ability' and the Rationing

Human rights and transformative deviance 156

9 New Class Relations in Education: the Strategies of the

Madeleine Arnot is Fellow of Jesus College and Reader in Sociology of

Alastair Bonnett is Reader in Human Geography at the University of

Bruce Carrington is Professor of Education at the University of New-

Lynn Davies is Professor of International Education and Director of

Jack Demaine is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at

Jo-Anne Dillabough is an Assistant Professor at the Ontario Institute

Sharon Gewirtz is Lecturer in Social Policy at the Open University. Her

David Gillborn is Professor of Education and Head of Policy Studies at the

Peter Kelly is a Lecturer in Social and Behavioural Studies in the Faculty

Jane Kenway is Professor of Education in the Language and Literacy

Anoop Nayak is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at the Uni-

Sally Power is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education,

Lawrence Saha is Reader in Sociology at the Australian National Uni-

and Society in Australia: Sociological Perspectives (with John Keeves)

Geoff Short is Reader in Educational Research at the University of

Christine Skelton is Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Depart-

Fay Smith is Lecturer in Education in the Department of Education at

Richard Tomlin is Managing Director of Community of Science Incorp-

Carol Vincent is Senior Lecturer in Policy Studies at the Institute of

Geoff Whitty was formerly Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of

Sue Willis is Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Education at Monash

Deborah Youdell is Research Associate in the Faculty of Education,

In the two decades since my Contemporary Theories in the Sociology of

of government programmes in relation to male and female patterns of

and training programme in order to `design' young workers in response

middle-class identities can illuminate how `success' is constructed and

Purpose: the dominant project

The importance of focusing on the `purpose' of the discipline is made

an important factor in shaping the interpretation of a field, its signif-

Location: the conditions of academic work

What equally importantly differentiates the sociology of education from

i(i) It implies, and possibly requires, some level of commitment on the

professional reality for teachers, the professionals themselves

Overall, however, sociology of education has been characterized by a

Context: opportunities and constraints

In a rather loose sense, context could be seen as the independent

typically to restrict the recognition of those aspects to changes of

The selection principle and the focus and approaches of the

I will now examine, briefly, the relationship between the selection

of the control of teacher education, ensuring that it was more `relevant'

ii(i) how to achieve a non-positivistic conceptualization of social

Here, no elements of the selection principle have altered; the change in

opment of funded research as a more attractive and flexible dimension

The experience of this period also highlights the importance of two

it reflects the problem of pupils performing in ways counter to the

He points also to the reception of Maureen Stone's book, The Education

Sociologies for education are oriented towards the interests of practi-

for instance in the way the traditional/progressive dichotomy has